Arnold Wechsler is the man in charge of hiring New York’s finest beat cops, police attorneys, dispatchers, and even the stable boys for the horses. How did a yeshivah kid from Brooklyn climb to the top of the New York Police Department?
OnePolicePlaza just north of theBrooklynBridge is an imposing 14-story building the color of burnt toast with plate glass windows set squarely into the bricks like eyes. Like a fortress it’s surrounded by an expanse of lawn and a metal fence with a manned guardhouse. Visitors are directed into a small building where they’re put through airline-style security: scanners metal detectors copies of identifying documents.
And even then once you’re actually waved through and cross the plaza to enter the high-ceilinged lobby you’re stopped at the front desk for cross-checking by a group of uniformed officers. Things are starting to feel like a Kafka novel: Even though you haven’t done anything wrong you begin to believe surreally that you must be guilty of something. The huge statue of policemen towering over the lobby doesn’t help the discomfort with the chilling motto “Fidelis Ad Mortem” (Faithful Until Death) affixed in large letters above.
On the floors above however life is reassuringly prosaic. Here there are dozens of offices filled with warrens of cubicles and filing cabinets and computers. You could be in any corporation and in many ways you are: With 53 000 employees the New York Police Department is one of the largest employers in the city. To service a population of eight and a half million people you have to be big.
The NYPD has never been known as a bastion of Jewish manpower. Hence about two years ago just about everybody in police and political circles was surprised when Police Commissioner Ray Kelly appointed a frum civilian Arnold Wechsler to be deputy chief commissioner of personnel.
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