FIeld Trip and an Unusual Looking Flag

Flag image by Blas Delgado Ortiz, 27 June 2001

A few weeks ago, while we were visiting my brother-in-law in a nursing home in Queens, we had occasion to stop by the NYPD 110th precinct station house to file a report about an incident. While my wife was chatting with the officer at the desk, I wandered around the lobby looking at the various posters and artifacts on display there. I noticed that in several of the pictures of "events", there was a distinctive flag on display - green & white stripes and 24 stars in a curious looking constellation arrangement, not simple rows or anything simply symmetric. I asked the officer after my wife had finished her business what that flag was and she waved me off, not knowing the answer. But the question stewed in the back of my mind, unsettled.

Today, I decided to try a Google search for:

flag green and white 24 stars

to see what it would find. The search easily turned up exactly the information I was looking for. It's the official flag of the NYC police department. 5 stripes for the 5 boroughs of the city (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island) and the 24 stars represent the 3 cities, 9 towns and 12 incorporated villages that were integrated together in forming NYC in 1898. A detailed explanation is given on http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-nycp.html. So now I know. Can't say that I'm impressed with the depth of knowledge displayed by the officer at the station house desk.

I can't share this kind of information without mentioning the "Fun with Flags" episode of "The Big Bang Theory". Enjoy!