The Upper West Side’s Cagney
Constant contact keeps O’Reilly on top of neighborhood issues
By Dan Rivoli
Posted by West Side Spirit on October 9, 2009 · View Comments
When Kathleen O’Reilly graduated from the Police Academy in 1991, she started out in the tough Northern Manhattan precincts. She remembers helping families identify their loved ones with DNA after the Sept. 11 attacks.
But during the last three years, she has been in the 24th precinct, which covers the West Side from West 86th to 110th streets, an eclectic, vibrant neighborhood.
“The Upper West Side is a wonderful place to work,” said O’Reilly, who is deputy inspector. “In a policing sense, it incorporates all three aspects: transit, housing developments and a large business community.”
As commanding officer of the precinct, O’Reilly is in charge of 200 personnel. Her team has made improving residents’ quality of life a priority. That requires constant contact with community groups and elected officials.
Kathleen O’Reilly, 24th Precinct. Photo by Andrew Schwartz
“My phone is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” she said. “I actually give out my cell phone number and email address at every single meeting I attend. But people don’t abuse it.”
Her most consistent complaint is noise. O’Reilly has collaborated with bar owners and the Columbus-Amsterdam Business Improvement District to strike a balance between having a vibrant nightlife scene and a livable residential area.
She says that most of the questions and complaints she receives, such as landlord-tenant fights, are not police matters. But she nonetheless gets involved.
“I act as a facilitator,” she said.
With so many residents who care about the neighborhood, O’Reilly knows she has to be responsive to any quality-of-life complaint.
“Obviously, if I don’t take care of that concern, there’s going to be 10 more people at the next meeting holding me to task,” she said.
O’Reilly, who is 39, cannot pinpoint the moment she decided to be a police officer—she just always wanted to be one. While her father had friends in the New York City Police Department, O’Reilly’s main inspiration came from the 1980s television show Cagney & Lacey, a cop-drama about two female NYPD detectives. O’Reilly said she always wanted to be Christine Cagney, the single, career-oriented detective.
“All my school buddies always knew that this was the only job I wanted to do,” she said.
The daughter of Irish immigrants, O’Reilly was born in Queens but spent her years going to school in England, where her mother had family. She’d return to New York during the summer and holidays.
“My grandmother was a big believer in traveling,” she said.
She came back to the states permanently in 1989 and decided to join the police force.
Now living in Orange County in the Hudson Valley, O’Reilly says she appreciates the people she serves in the Upper West Side, who are active in their community.
“They want their concerns to be addressed,” she said. “They’re willing to work with us.”
