The annual parade of “New York’s Finest”, an often used nickname for the New York Police Department, was filmed on June 1, 1899, in Union Square. At the turn of the century, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) was still recovering from scandals and allegations of corruption that tarnished its reputation in the 1890s. Four years earlier, the New York State Senate created a committee to investigate the department. The Lexow Committee issued a scathing report detailing serious criminal activity within the organization.

The New York Municipal Police was founded in 1845 with an initial force of 900 men. Nearly 400,000 people lived in New York City (NYC) around that time. The municipality was overwhelmed by expanding slums, a high rate of crime, and frequent rioting. Looking toward London for solutions to its policing problems, the city adopted reforms similar to those that Sir Robert Peel had instituted in 1829. In 1845, uniformed officers operating under a chain of command replaced the outdated constable system the Dutch had established in seventeenth-century Manhattan.

However, immense challenges remained. Police officers served only one- or two-year tours of duty, and order and continuity suffered accordingly. Jobs as police officers, like almost all public service work in nineteenth-century New York, were awarded based on cronyism and political patronage. Meanwhile, the social problems that prompted the 1845 reforms increased as the population swelled past the one million mark in the 1870s.

With public disapproval of the force running high, the annual police parade was cancelled in 1895. That same year, Theodore Roosevelt was appointed president of the Police Commission. He initiated strict and effective reform measures that helped restore public confidence in the department. During his two-year tenure, Roosevelt recruited some 1,600 officers based on their ability to serve rather than their political loyalties. In addition, he opened admission to the department for ethnic minorities and hired the first woman ever to work at NYC’s police headquarters.

Today, the NYPD is considered the largest, and one of the oldest municipal police departments in the United States. Its jurisdiction encompasses New York City’s five boroughs, and covers an area of about 320 square miles. Approximately 36,000 uniformed officers and 19,000 civilian employees work to keep the “City that never sleeps” safe.