Ash Kelley

But none of that mattered to the people that were saying this, like to Rosenthal.

All that mattered to him was that people kept reading what he was saying.

He kept building a name for himself.

In the weeks and months that followed, he continued to push the apathy narrative, determined to find, you know, a way to ride this wave of attention as far as he could.

In May of that year, he published a long form article in the paper titled Study of the Sickness of Apathy.

where he summarized the public reaction to learning of the inaction of the Genovese case, saying, what the devil do you expect in a town, a jungle like this?

Sir, go elsewhere.

Just go away.

In a matter of months...

This story had been changed.

They had taken a tragic story of a brutal murder in Queens and made it into an alarmist statement of the decline of urban society.

And she got totally lost.

Yeah.

In his autobiography, Rosenthal Road of Kitty, her name, once known only to her family and the people she served at the bar, has taken on an instantly understood meaning to all who have heard it.

It's like this all just fit their worldview.

Man, oh man.

It didn't matter if it was true or not.

This fit the worldview that they had of what was going on.

And so people, they just accepted it.

And anyone else who had that worldview also accepted this as like, yep, confirmation of what I've been saying.