The NYPD's disappearing photo exhibit trick

Avid First Read schedule-readers may have noticed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans to view an “NYPD photo exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum” before holding a press conference on crime statistics in the museum’s entrance hall, but history buffs will be disappointed to find out the exhibit doesn’t exist – at least not anymore.

As pointed out by the Times’ J. David Goodman on Twitter, the pop-up show was gone by the time the mayor finished speaking. An NYPD spokesperson confirmed the exhibit was put up by the NYPD before the event to show top brass and other press conference attendees what the city looked like before the long and significant decline in crime began in 1993.

The wall of photos featured images of “old New York” – think graffiti and burnt-out buildings – in the middle of the Brooklyn Museum lobby.

The NYPD says it’s looking for a permanent location for the photos, confirming that it’s harder to find gallery space in this city than it is to bring crime to record-low levels and reduce murders to an average of less than one a day in a city of more than 8.5 million people.