The Mover

21st Precinct Sergeant Waters. It's sinking. What is it, Alfreda? Oh, a barge. A collision with what? Yeah? Yeah? You're in the muster room at the 21st Precinct, the nerve center. A call is coming through. You will follow the action taken pursuant to that call from this minute until the final report is written in the 124 room at the 21st Precinct.

Hello CB, Sergeant Ward is at the 21st, as a gravel barge sinking in the East River off 65th Street. Now they got the barge captain off all right. You better send a police launch in the ESD, okay? Yeah. Alright.

21st Precinct. It's just lines on a map of the city of New York. Most of the 173,000 people wedged into the nine tenths of a square mile between Fifth Avenue and the East River wouldn't know if you asked them that they lived or worked in the 21st.

Whether they know it or not, the security of their homes, their persons and their property is the job of the men of the 21st precinct. The 21st, 160 patrolman, 11 sergeants and four lieutenants of whom I am the boss.

My name is Cannelli, Frank Cannelli. I am Captain in command of the 21st. I was working my day tour. At 8.35 AM, sector car number 5 came by the house to take me to the East River Drive near 21st Street. A gravel barge had sunk in the river on the previous day, and salvage operations

to clear the channel had begun that morning. I had anticipated that the work would create a curious attraction and result in a serious traffic problem along the East River Drive. As patrolman Dylan, the operator of sector car number five, drove me to inspect this condition, I saw in the block ahead of us a large moving van parked at the curb in front of 181 Sutton