New York, NY - Urban Archive

South of Union Square

Story

You Can't Win Against The Poplar Street Crime Laboratory

A Brooklyn Daily Eagle article from 1937 highlights what CSI looked like in the 30s. Shown to the press for the first time, the newly funded laboratory employed twelve cops to "trace down the wolves in human form who rove the city to rob and kill."

By

Center for Brooklyn History

1

72 Poplar Street

72 Poplar Street

$10,000 (a pretty penny in 1937 dollars) of equipment had been spent on bringing the detectives up to speed by New York's Police Department.

2

72 Poplar Street

72 Poplar Street

The technology that was revolutionary at the time now seems rather mundane. Here a detective demonstrates the use of X-rays for scanning packages, explaining that it could be used for discovering bombs (for the era a novel idea.)

3

72 Poplar Street

72 Poplar Street

The Lab had everything form electric centrifuges to separate liquid from matter, state of the art refrigerators and ovens, vents for testing dangerous fumes.

4

72 Poplar Street

72 Poplar Street

Here, a detective attempts to photograph gunpowder residue in order to determine the distance from which the shot was fired. It would be hard to imagine this impressing any seasoned procedural watcher, but it amazed the reporters who witnessed it.

5

72 Poplar Street

72 Poplar Street

The Crime Laboratory was a new step in the attempts to bring hard science into solving crimes. Viewed as one of the top crime labs in the country, the New York Police Commissioner brought chiefs in from throughout the state to show them the advances being made.

Privacy Policy Terms of Service