If you believe books and dramas from the mid-20th century, every urban neighborhood had a beat cop. If I understand correctly, his job was to be a genial figure of authority for a specific neighborhood, keeping an eye on everything just in case of trouble.
Did such cops really exist? Everywhere, or just in New York? If they did, when and why did they go away? (911? Increasing labor costs?)
It was common in most cities, and not just in the US (London had a similar system).
Before cars, police went on foot patrols and would be assigned a specific neighborhood – which makes sense – he would know the territory and could spot suspicious activity, and could get on the scene faster if there was trouble (since he’d only be a few blocks away).
I think it primarily died out as cops starting using cars. This allowed them to be moved from place to place as necessary. One neighborhood cop might have trouble dealing with a gang of bank robbers, but with cars, you could bring in cops from all over.
I double labor costs had anything to do with it.
Quite the appropriate typo. 
Cities were smaller and denser in the pre-auto era, by which I mean almost any time before WWII. Neighborhoods were distinct places, with each having their own grocery stores, dairies, pharmacies, and other little shops. It made sense to place a number of police precinct houses around the city to fit into these existing neighborhoods and get to know the patterns of life. These would be found in every city worthy of the name.
Far fewer people had cars. Most people in cities walked or used public transportation. No one drove a car to a supermarket and loaded up the trunk. You walked to the corner grocery and bakery and schlepped home bags. You went down to the corner to catch the street car or bus. You didn’t have air conditioning or television or all the other reasons that keep people inside houses. Street culture was far livelier. When streets are full of people you want police walking around with them rather than off at a distance.
Crime was also different. It’s hard not to say that the past was less violent. People really did leave their front doors unlocked, even in cities. Gangs as we know them today were basically non-existent. The Mafia and similar groups were an issue in many large cities, but they also helped keep down small-time crime because they lived in the same neighborhoods as they worked.
Beat patrolmen would probably not encounter any crimes more serious than some break-ins, vandalism, petty theft and the like. Their batons were likely all the weapons they would ever need. Serious crimes were rarer and would be handled by the boys from downtown.
WWII and the auto age killed them off. I don’t ever remember seeing a beat cop in the 1950s. So many men were in the service during the war that police forces would have found it difficult to keep the number of men needed for a visible presence. Putting the fewer available police in cars so they could cover greater areas made sense. The almost complete automobilizing of the culture after the war meant that police forces had to keep up. Once people are off the streets and in cars, police also have to be in cars.
If everybody gets flying belts in the future and take to the air, the police will take to the air right along with us.
There are probably still officers cruising regular “districts” in their cars today. It makes sense to have someone familiar with the neighborhood on duty there.
A well known example from the past was Officer Tippit in Dallas on 11/22/63.
A friend I met in college is a neighborhood cop; he was assigned to patrol that one area. One of his responsibilities is to organize neighborhood watches. I believe that he also teaches saftey/D.A.R.E. in the schools there.
Thanks for the informative replies so far. I should have specified in the OP that I meant officers on foot; I know there are regular neighborhood patrols, but I think there’s a key difference. In the foot-patrol era, the officer’s face would be known in the neighborhood. Officers in a car are much more anonymous.
I hadn’t realized the extent that WWII and the automobile explosion changed the urban landscape. I’m from Southern California, where the vast majority of the settlement is post-WWII.
There are still officers on foot patrol in at least some parts of NYC - and not just Manhattan.
There were many technological advances (radio, cars, etc) that made police officers more mobile and created a paradigm shift away from neighborhood beat cops. Additionally, a move toward enhanced professionalism in the late 60s and 70s aided the shift as it was suggested that beat cops were easier to corrupt through familiarity.
There has been, in the past 15 years or so, a return back to the “beat cop” mentality. The idea is to overcome the “clinical detachment” that was insisted upon on the move to professionalization and to rehumanize the police for the citizens being served, and the citizenry for the police. You frequently see these initiative addressed in policies such as “community based policing”.
Should anyone need a cite for the above, see the work James Q. Wilson as an example of the theory behind this.
There are very few areas where a foot patrol would be effective. Only in very densely populated urban areas would a foot patrol have any use. How much can someone on foot cover? How far can they go if there is an emergency somewhere? Doesn’t make much sense to have a foot patrol in most areas. The suburbanization of America made the foot patrol obsolete exept in a few areas. The move back to community policing relied more on bicycle patrols and now segways rather than foot patrols.
And in San Francisco… I remember seeing the same cop quite a few times up and down Geary whilst living in the Richmond District.
It wasn’t this guy, was it?
