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'It's a Man's World,' NYPD Says in Police Academy Sign

By Katie Honan | October 11, 2016 4:09pm | Updated on October 11, 2016 4:21pm
 The display of books is featured prominently at the NYPD's police academy in College Point.
The display of books is featured prominently at the NYPD's police academy in College Point.
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DNAinfo/Katie Honan

COLLEGE POINT — The NYPD's latest class of recruits features the highest percentage of women in the city's history — but perhaps someone should tell the school's librarian.

Signs reading "It's a Man's World" and "These books are for guys, by guys, about guys" were spotted Tuesday inside a glass-encased display of books outside the library at the NYPD's massive training facility in Queens — a short walk from where ​Mayor Bill de Blasio and new Police Commissioner James O'Neill swore in a class of 700 recruits.

Of them, ​172 are women — the highest percentage in the NYPD's history.

Another sign in the case encouraged any recruits sick of reading about "vampires" or "whatever the gals are reading" to check out suggested tomes — which include John Updike's "Terrorist," "The Entitlement Cure: Finding Success in Doing Hard Things the Right Way" by John Townsend and "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions" by David Berlinski.

An NYPD spokesman said the librarian, who is a woman, selects the books to display each month, often with a theme. He did not know what this month's theme was. 

"The books are chosen by the librarian, who has a Master's in librarian information sciences," DCPI's Lt. John Grimpel said. 

"They are rotated monthly which include women's history month in March, and a women in policing display in May." 

The reporter who spotted the signs was told she was not allowed in that area, despite the case being in the same area that press had been invited into to cover the swearing in. The academy, which is located at 130-30 College Point Blvd. in College Point, is a 30-acre campus the NYPD opened in 2014 after relocating from its former home in Gramercy.

But the NYPD's First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker said after the ceremony that the new class of women "is continuing a trend as we've seen in terms of diversity of our recruits coming into the department."

The academy's library case also featured crime novels like John T. Lescroart's "The Hunt" — a gripping tale of a Private Investigator Wyatt Hunt's investigation into the murder of a federal judge — and "The Hundredth Man," by Jack Kerley, about a detective in Alabama.

Some are focused on self-improvement, like "This Is Awkward: How Life's Uncomfortable Moments Open the Door to Intimacy and Connection" by Sammy Rhodes.

In its Amazon blurb, Rhodes' book tackles some of the biggest  challenges in life, like depression and sexual struggles — issues that can be relieved "by the embrace of a God who knows the most shameful things about us and loves us all the same."