The Red Berets ride to the rescue of New York subway commuters, 1979

Help was at hand for the worst routes, the least well-lit stations and the poorest, most violent neighbourhoods'

Chivalry has returned to New York,' proclaimed the Observer on 15 July 1979, as it descended into the lawless New York subway underworld, accompanied by the Magnificent Thirteen Subway Patrol, AKA the Red Berets. The group had formed that February, in response to a violent crime wave. From an initial 13, they now numbered nearly 100 and their mission was to make New Yorkers feel safer. They are in their late teens or early 20s, most of them have some training in the martial arts and all are as streetwise as alley cats.'

Working-class and from diverse ethnic backgrounds, most worked or studied during the day. Their leader was the charismatic Curtis the Rock' Sliwa, a poor 23-year-old Polish-American who graduated in garbage collecting and street fighting'.

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