The 52Nd

by Luis A. Rivera

Luis A. Rivera saw NYPD as larger-than-life while growing up in the South Bronx in the late 1960s and 1970s. From the time he was seven years old, he dream to become one of them.

As a kid, he’d sneak a quick peek through the closed curtains just to see the arriving police cars—the old green, black, and white ones with a siren that seemed to go on forever. He’d notice the big Irish cops getting out of their police cars, with their hats on and nightsticks under their arms.

In 1989, he was accepted into the New York City Police Academy. Soon, he was hitting the books and navigating shooting range qualifications. The courses were intense.

As he achieved his dream, he soon realized the NYPD was not the Boy Scouts, and how unforgiving the police department can be. In this memoir, we look back at how it was like to be a rookie cop with it’s ups and downs in an officer’s career.

209 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 30, 2023

Reviews

[Jason Medina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book brought back a lot of memories for me during my time as a NYC police officer. Luis started 3 years before me, so we worked around many of the same eras and incidents. For example, the transitions from light blue to dark blue shirts and .38 caliber revolvers to 9mm semi-automatic handguns, as well as the Washington Heights riots and September 11, 2001, to name a few. Therefore, we had many similar experiences. For a brief time, we even worked in the same precinct! One of his mentors, who he mentions, was also known to me, John D'Allara. Unfortunately, he was one of the heroes who died saving lives when the Twin Towers collapsed. I enjoyed reading about Luis' earlier experiences the most because I was able to connect better to that time of his life, since I was also a young Puerto Rican rookie. For one chapter or two near the end, he gets into politics. I have no interest in that, but he did not dwell on it, which is good. However, there were numerous grammatical errors, which could have been avoided with proper editing. Since it is his first book, it is to be expected. I made plenty of mistakes with my first book, too. Other than that, I thought it was a good read, which provided a unique insight into the NYPD, which is different from what people see on television or in movies.

[George Norris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A peek behind the curtain

The 52nd was a well told memoir of an honest cop recounting his days patroling the streets of NYC. Luis Rivera touches on what led to him becoming a cop and shares quite a few stories throughout the book. Some stories are funny, others intense, one was heart-wrenching. Rivera touches on some historical events that will be familiar to many readers and his role related to those events. He doesn't shy away from race, his private life, or incidents that landed him in hot water with the deparment. Overall The 52nd was a very good read.