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Alongside The Godfather Part II, Toy Story 2, and Paddington 2, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is on that exclusive list of sequels which prove that cinematic lightning can strike twice. The 1992 caper not only replicated the original movie’s winning combination of holiday cheer, criminal family neglect, and slapstick violence inflicted by a hugely resourceful, if slightly sociopathic, tween, it also upped the ante with a trip to a snow-capped Big Apple, a Mary Poppins-esque bird lady, and Tim Curry delivering possibly cinema’s finest evil grin.

Thirty years after Kevin McCallister unleashed his second reign of booby-trapped terror, here’s a look at 10 facts about the festive favorite.

Several experts have determined that The Wet Bandits would have died in real life from the torrent of injuries suffered at the hands of their pre-teen nemesis. While Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern thankfully managed to walk away from the Home Alone franchise with their lives intact, the former did experience one particularly hair-raising moment—literally. As the motor-mouthed funnyman revealed to People decades later, he sustained serious burns to the top of his head while filming one of two scenes in which Harry’s hat is set ablaze.

While reprising his role of the hapless Marv Murchins, Stern learned that there’s truth to the old adage, “Never work with children or animals” when he endured the trauma of a pigeon flying directly into his mouth. Alongside Pesci, the actor found himself covered from head to toe in birdseed before hundreds of the trained creatures were let loose for the hilarious attack. But one particular bird made a beeline for Stern, suggesting that Marv’s girly scream was very much for real. 

We didn’t—and couldn’t possibly—know it at the time, but Home Alone 2 ensured that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be the only POTUS to have some acting credits to his name when it gave a cameo to Donald Trump. Well, “gave” probably isn’t the right word. Director Christopher Columbus later revealed he was essentially railroaded into handing the future president a speaking role in return for use of his Plaza Hotel.

In 2021, Culkin famously joined growing calls for Trump’s one line (“down the hall and to the left”) to be cut from the movie. But Columbus revealed that test audiences actually cheered at the sight of the real estate magnate back in 1992. 

Culkin was a virtual unknown when he was cast as Kevin McCallister in 1990’s Home Alone, which explains why his salary for fronting a family-friendly Hollywood caper was a relatively meager $110,000. Of course, with his Golden Globe-nominated, star-making performance helping the original film become the highest-grossing live-action comedy of all time at the time, the child star was able to command a much bigger paycheck the second time around. In fact, Culkin received a whopping 4000 percent pay rise for Lost in New York, with his $4.5 million earnings topped off with a significant cut of the movie’s $359 million gross.

Kit Culkin, Macaulay’s father/manager, was well-known for causing trouble behind the scenes, and Lost in New York was no exception. Kit Culkin practically held 20th Century Fox for ransom by threatening to take his son out of the Home Alone franchise unless they gave him the leading role in the horror movie The Good Son. Recognizing that the sequel wouldn’t work without the original Kevin McCallister, the studio caved to Kit’s demands. In 1993, Macaulay Culkin could be seen playing another psychopathic tween—only this time one who does actually tip over the edge into murder.

The Talkboy, which was used (among other things) to fool Tim Curry’s Grinch-like concierge into thinking that Kevin’s irascible uncle is using the shower, became one of the must-have Christmas presents of 1993. But the cassette recorder didn’t actually exist until John Hughes willed it into existence. Yes, the scriptwriter was adamant that Kevin should have a top-of-the-range new toy to help wreak havoc across New York and so 20th Century Fox’s marketing team joined forces with Tiger Electronics to create a non-working prop. The film’s success inspired the latter company to release a model for real which allowed kids across America to wreak havoc on their own homes.

In 1991, a year after Home Alone arrived in theaters, Culkin appeared in the video for Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” and the two developed a friendship. That same year, the King of Pop also showed up announced several times during the filming of Lost In New York. Set decorator Daniel Clancy later revealed how Jacko took the child star out for dinner in a limo in-between takes, while Devin Ratray, a.k.a. Kevin’s domineering older brother Buzz, disclosed how he also rocked up to rehearsals at the McCallister family’s Chicago home one ice-cold February morning. 

The 1-800-759-3000 number used for The Plaza Hotel in the film was the same in real life. So, to capitalize on all the interested parties that phoned it, the establishment began offering a Home Alone Experience. Fans with McCallister kind of money can still book a room similar to Kevin’s in the movie, complete with “one of those little refrigerators you have to open with a key;” tour some of the movie’s locations, including Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building, and Radio City Music Hall in a limo and enjoy the young mischief-maker’s ultimate food heaven, a large cheese pizza. 

Be prepared for your childhood illusions to be shattered: the magical toy shop where Kevin is gifted a pair of ceramic turtle doves (just what every kid wants, obviously) and which he saves from a Wet Bandits robbery doesn’t exist in real life. Duncan’s Toy Chest (which was named in honor of Duncan Henderson, the film’s executive producer) was an entirely fictional one based on F.A.O. Schwarz’s flagship store in Manhattan. Its exterior shots were taken outside Chicago’s Rookery Building, also the same property used in The Untouchables as the headquarters of Kevin Costner’s Prohibition agent Eliot Ness. 

Lost in New York is certainly more descriptive than Alone Again, the title originally bandied about by producers. But director Chris Columbus argued that it sounded more like a remake than a sequel (he also reportedly cut a scene where Kevin trying on some aftershave over fears that the film would be seen as a mere rehash of the original). But the most detailed title undoubtedly belongs to the French release, Maman, j’ai encore raté l’avion, which translated to, “Mom, I Missed the Plane Again.”

On May 9, 1945, reports that Nazi Germany had surrendered to the USSR resulted in a 22-hour celebration. The Soviets partied so hard that the entire country briefly ran out of vodka.

How the Soviets ran out of vodka

On May 9, 1945, a radio report in the USSR announced that Germany had officially surrendered to the Soviet Union. There was every reason to celebrate immediately. Joseph Stalin, the country’s leader, would address citizens later that day, but revelers were too overjoyed to wait.

While the country probably wasn’t entirely devoid of vodka, those who stayed up to celebrate drank the store shelves dry. And grain was in short supply in wartime, leaving few vodka reserves on hand to replenish the shelves.

War History Online notes that in the book History of Russia, author Walter Moss wrote, “During the famine of the early 1930s, Stalin ensured that sufficient grain and potatoes were still available for vodka production, and vodka revenues in this period provided about one-fifth of government revenues.”

There was also a state monopoly on alcohol. Stalin made its production a national priority, even during the widespread famine. So it’s likely that the shortage didn’t last long since vodka production never stopped.

In any case, by the time Stalin officially addressed the nation on that fateful day in 1945, those who hadn’t celebrated had to find another way to do so. Those who had were probably nursing one heck of a hangover.

Accounts of the vodka shortage

According to Mental Floss (cited below): “As one reporter put it, ‘I was lucky to buy a liter of vodka at the train station when I arrived because it was impossible to buy any later… There was no vodka in Moscow on May 10; we drank it all.‘”

War History Online quoted naval navigator Nikolai Kryuchkov, who recalled:

“On May 9, 1945, with the permission of the commander, I left for 3 days in Moscow. It was impossible to tell what happened on that day in Moscow…. We celebrated Victory Day with my family, the owner’s apartments and neighbors. They drank for the victory, for those who did not live to see this day and for the fact that this bloody massacre would never be repeated. On May 10, it was impossible to buy vodka in Moscow, because it was completely drunk.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Time Russia Ran Out of Vodka” — Mental Floss

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David Ferrie was a rabid anti-communist who allegedly knew Lee Harvey Oswald and had shadowy connections to the CIA, which has led some to speculate that he conspired in the plot to kill Kennedy.

For most of his life, David Ferrie struck those who knew him as an oddball. Bouncing from job to job, attempting to conceal his alopecia with a wig and fake eyebrows, Ferrie didn’t accomplish much by the time he died at the age of 47. But some believe that there was more to Ferrie than met the eye — and that he helped assassinate John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Described as “brilliant,” a “paradox,” and a “psycho,” by those who crossed his path, Ferrie held deeply anti-communistic views and spoke publicly about his disdain for Kennedy. He was questioned by the FBI just days after the president’s assassination and was publicly listed as a suspect in 1967.

But though Ferrie always denied his involvement in the assassination or that he knew Oswald, some evidence does link the two men. Compellingly, investigators dug up a photo that showed both men at a cookout in 1955 and some have claimed that Ferrie and Oswald were acquaintances.

But that’s not the only reason why some think that David Ferrie helped kill President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.

A ‘Highly Intelligent’ And ‘Highly Obnoxious’ Man

Born on March 28, 1918, David William Ferrie lived an unusual life, much of it documented by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in the 1970s. According to their investigation, Ferrie originally aspired to become a priest but left seminary school because of “emotional instability.”

From there, Ferrie bounced from job to job. He trained as a pilot at his father’s suggestion and briefly found work as a pilot for an oil company.

When the company went out of business, Ferrie worked as a high school teacher, but was fired after allegedly “psychoanalyzing” his students instead of teaching them. Shortly thereafter, around 1949, Ferrie left the Cleveland area once rumors spread that he’d taken several young boys to a brothel.

A gay man, and allegedly a misogynist, Ferrie also made no secret of his political views. He was adamantly against communism and frequently stated that he didn’t think that the United States had done enough to stem its tide. The HSCA found he’d publicly disparaged Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy for not doing enough to fight it.

“He apparently expressed his views to anyone who would listen,” the HSCA found. “During an interview with an IRS auditor in 1960, Ferrie was ‘outspoken’ in his derogatory comments about the United States. He complained bitterly about his alleged tax persecution to such an extent that the agent reported he thought Ferrie was actually deranged, a ‘psycho.’”

Indeed, David Ferrie established a reputation in adulthood as a bizarre and angry man — an impression reinforced by his “makeshift toupee” and “exaggerated eyebrows,” which Ferrie used to try to conceal his alopecia.

The HSCA described him as “complex, even bizarre,” and one of Ferrie’s associates characterized him as “a paradox.” Others remembered Ferrie as “very aggressive,” “highly obnoxious,” and difficult to get along with, though the HSCA also stated that Ferrie was “highly intelligent, even brilliant.”

Ferrie’s love for flying brought him some stability. He found work at Eastern Airlines in the 1950s — by falsifying information on his application — and volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol. Working in New Orleans, Ferrie established a reputation as a hands-on instructor and a “good organizer.”

Behind the scenes, Ferrie continued to support the fight against communism. The HSCA found that Ferrie worked with anti-Castro Cuban revolutionaries and that he possibly offered financial assistance, flying lessons, and weapons smuggling.

Ferrie even took a vacation in 1961 that the HSCA found “coincided with the Bay of Pigs” though their report acknowledged that “Ferrie’s role, if any, is not known.”

David Ferrie was certainly a strange character — but did he actually help assassinate President John F. Kennedy in November 1963?

Why Some Think David Ferrie Helped Kill JFK

On Nov. 22, 1963, an assassin shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. That day, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and soon charged with assassinating the 46-year-old president. But in New Orleans, a different investigation was unfolding.

There, according to the HSCA, a private investigator named Jack Martin contacted police and told them that David Ferrie might have had something to do with the assassination.

Martin, who knew Ferrie through another private investigator named Guy Bannister, alleged that Ferrie had been in Texas during the assassination, that he was meant to serve as a getaway pilot, and that he’d known Lee Harvey Oswald from their time in the Civil Air Patrol.

According to Fox 10 News, the FBI questioned Ferrie just five days after the JFK assassination. And Ferrie gave some eyebrow-raising answers.

When asked about John F. Kennedy, Ferrie admitted that he was angry about the president’s failure to support Cuban rebels during the Bay of Pigs and acknowledged that he “might have used an off-hand or colloquial expression ‘He ought to be shot.’”

Ferrie also admitted that he’d discussed the president’s use of convertible cars with others and that he’d even said that “anyone could hide in the bushes and shoot a president.”

However, Ferrie denied that he’d had anything to do with the assassination or that he’d ever known Lee Harvey Oswald. A cache of documents about Ferrie from the National Archives states that Ferrie was “positive” that he’d been in New Orleans on Nov. 22, though he’d gone to Texas that weekend.

As nola.com writes, the FBI released Ferrie because his story seemed to check out. A source later told the Saturday Evening Post that “The FBI squeezed Ferrie dry, found nothing there and discarded him.”

But that wasn’t enough for New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. As depicted in the 1991 film JFK, Garrison opened his own investigation into the Kennedy assassination in 1967. According to Garrison’s obituary in The New York Times, he declared that he’d “solved the assassination” and that Lee Harvey Oswald had “never fired a shot.”

Garrison’s investigation into the assassination focused on a number of anti-communists in New Orleans, including David Ferrie.

“We discovered a whole mare’s-nest of underground activity involving the CIA, elements of the paramilitary right and militant anti-Castro exile groups,” Garrison told Playboy. “We discovered links between David Ferrie, Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby [who shot and killed Oswald in 1963].”

Garrison added: “We discovered, in short, what I had hoped not to find… the existence of a well-organized conspiracy to assassinate John Kennedy, a conspiracy that came to fruition in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and in which David Ferrie played a vital role.”

But David Ferrie died on Feb. 22, 1967, just days before Garrison planned to arrest him. As The New York Times reported at the time, an autopsy found that Ferrie had died of a berry aneurysm, or a ruptured brain vessel, though investigators also found apparent suicide notes nearby.

“I suppose it could just be a weird coincidence that the night Ferrie penned two suicide notes, he died of natural causes,” Garrison told Playboy.

He went on to prosecute New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw as a possible conspirator, but The New York Times writes that Shaw’s month-long trial was a “circus.” Shaw was acquitted by the jury after less than an hour.

From there, David Ferrie largely faded from the collective memory — until PBS discovered a photograph of him with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1993.

The Final Piece Of Evidence Against David Ferrie

Two years after JFK (1991) thrust the Kennedy assassination back into the spotlight, PBS announced that they’d acquired a photo that showed Ferrie with Lee Harvey Oswald. Sure enough, the photo provided by CAP member John B. Ciravolo, Jr. showed Ferrie and Oswald at a CAP cookout in 1955.

According to PBS, the photographer Chuck Frances claimed he’d told the FBI that Ferrie and Oswald knew each other, though he hadn’t mentioned the photograph. Ciravolo additionally told Fox 10 News that he and other teenagers worshipped Ferrie for his engaging teaching style, and that it wouldn’t be a surprise if Oswald had attended one of Ferrie’s parties.

Yet others cautioned that appearing in a photograph together didn’t mean that Ferrie and Oswald had known each other.

“I never heard David Ferrie mention Lee Harvey Oswald,” Layton Martens, a CAP cadet and a friend of Ferrie’s, told PBS. Shown the photograph, he recognized Ferrie but insisted that it didn’t prove that Ferrie and Oswald had had any kind of relationship outside of the cookout.

“It does indicate the possibility of an association,” Martens admitted to PBS, “but if and to what extent is another question.”

He added: “Of course, we’ve all been photographed with people, and we could be presented with photographs later and asked, ‘Well, do you know this person? Obviously, you must because you’ve been photographed with them.’ Well no, it’s just a photograph, and I don’t know that person. It’s just someone who happened to be in the picture.”

So was David Ferrie involved in the Kennedy assassination? Did he know Lee Harvey Oswald? For now, those questions seem unanswerable. Ferrie, Kennedy, and Oswald are all dead. And the U.S. government continues to keep many of its files on the Kennedy assassination under lock and key.

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After reading about David Ferrie and why some think he helped assassinate John F. Kennedy, discover the unknown story of Marina Oswald Porter, Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife. Or, delve into the mystery of JFK’s brain, which has been missing for decades.

If you’re a bibliophile, you know the New York Public Library is an omnipresent nexus for the written word. With 92 locations across the city, the NYPL system serves 16 million readers annually.

With that kind of traffic, it’s always interesting to see what sorts of books patrons are picking up. The library recently released a list of its top checkouts of 2022, which follows their rundown of 2021 and their 2020 list of the top books in their history. Here’s what readers were grabbing this year at their Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island branches:

The NYPL’s most popular tome was this tale of Nora Seed, a woman whose attempt to die by suicide finds her in a kind of purgatory inside a mystical library.

Garmus’s debut novel centers on Elizabeth Zott, who finds her love of chemistry diluted by the chauvinism of the 1960s and eventually finds success on a subversive cooking show. Brie Larson is slated to star in an Apple TV+ adaptation.

Towles authors a road trip for three young men and one 8-year-old in 1954 Nebraska over the course of 10 eventful days.

Reid (Daisy Jones and the Six) takes readers into the lives of rock star Mick Riva and his offspring, who deal with their father’s eccentricities on their own terms.

Courtship takes time for Poppy and Alex, two college students who meet (and meet, and meet) over the course of a decade’s worth of summer vacations.

A time travel yarn, This Time Tomorrow sees Alice Stern finding herself back in her 16-year-old body—time enough to alter the course of her unrewarding trajectory and warn her father of the bad habits that will eventually take his life.

Marquee movie star Evelyn Hugo is ready to tell all about her glamour-filled old Hollywood experience, a dream assignment for journalist Monique Grant.  As Hugo talks, Grant discovers there’s far more to her story than meets the eye.

Nora and Charlie are two font-crossed lovers toiling in the publishing word in this romance from Henry, who scores two spots on the list.

Hoover’s thriller has ambitious-but-struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh getting a plum assignment: finishing books for injured author Verity Crawford. But one manuscript has family secrets that threaten both Lowen and the Crawford household 

Hoover’s romance struck a chord with readers: Entrepreneur Lily falls for surgeon Ryle, but their relationship is complicated by the reemergence of Lily’s former love, Atlas. The author released a sequel, It Starts With Us, in 2022.

It’s the rare filmmaker who can claim even a single franchise to their credit, but the late Wes Craven has managed to do it twice. The director who introduced the world to Freddy Krueger in 1984 in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street also, with the help of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, deconstructed the horror genre in 1996’s Scream. That latter film has spawned four sequels, with a fifth due in March 2023.

Just don’t expect Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) to appear in it.

In a recent interview with Collider, Williamson put to rest an enduring fan theory that Macher—who was one half of the serial-killing teenage duo in the original—will rise from the dead. “No, he’s dead,” Williamson said. “I think that started because of the college scene, the frat party scene because [Lillard is] standing in the background.”

Williamson is referring to a scene in Scream 2 (1997), where Lillard can be seen briefly (and barely) during a college dorm party sequence. “He just came to visit the set that night,” Williamson said. Had he been Macher, it’s likely Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) would have acknowledged the presence of her former nemesis.

Instead of treating it like an Easter Egg, some fans imagined it was a hint that Stu could return despite being stabbed repeatedly and electrocuted by a television set that had been dropped on his head, which is how he met his demise in the original film. (His co-conspirator, Skeet Ulrich’s Billy Loomis, made brief appearances in 2022’s Scream as a hallucination suffered by his daughter Sam, played by Melissa Barrera.)

While Lillard didn’t physically appear in the last Scream, his voice can be heard: Lillard did the voiceover for Ghostface in the fiction-within-a-fiction Stab 8 trailer, and as a guest at a house party held at the Macher household.

From 1971 to 1972, a serial killer known only as the “Freeway Phantom” stalked Washington, D.C., abducting and murdering six young Black girls.

In 1971, a serial killer struck in Washington, D.C., for the first time in known historu. Over the next 17 months, the so-called “Freeway Phantom” kidnapped and murdered six Black girls between the ages of 10 and 18.

It took four murders for police to realize the cases were connected. And as he killed without consequences, the Phantom only grew bolder and more vicious.

After kidnapping his fourth victim, the serial killer made her call her family. And a note in the pocket of the fifth victim taunted the police: “Catch me if you can!”

Who was the Freeway Phantom? Decades later, the case remains chillingly unsolved.

The First Freeway Phantom Murder

By 1971, serial killers had made headlines in New York and California. But that year, Washington, D.C., experienced its first serial murders.

In April, Carol Spinks walked to the local 7-Eleven with $5 in her pocket. The 13-year-old had been sent by her older sister to buy TV dinners.

Spinks reached the 7-Eleven, made her purchases, and set off for home. But she vanished during the four-block walk.

Police found Spinks’ body six days later. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled — and police believe the killer had kept the girl alive for several days before murdering her.

Spinks left behind an identical twin, Carolyn. “It was terrible,” Carolyn Spinks recalled of the days after her sister’s murder. “I couldn’t get it together. I thought I was losing my mind.”

However, Carol Spinks’ shocking death was only the first in a series of murders.

Two months later, police received a call about a second body in the same spot – an embankment next to the I-295 freeway.

The third victim’s body appeared just nine days later. And the serial killer known as the Freeway Phantom had become bolder. This time, he made his victim call home before he killed her.

A Note From The ‘Freeway Phantom’

Brenda Faye Crockett was just 10 years old when she went missing. In July 1971, Crockett’s mother sent her to the local grocery store for bread and dog food. But Brenda never came home.

About an hour later, the phone rang at the Crockett house. Brenda’s mother had left to look for her missing daughter, so Brenda’s 7-year-old sister Bertha answered the phone.

Brenda told her sister that she was in Virginia, and that a white man had “snatched” her up. But Brenda said that her kidnapper had called a taxi to send her home.

A half-hour later, Brenda called a second time. “Did my mother see me?” she asked. Then, after a pause, she whispered, “Well, I’ll see you.” The phone went dead. Police found Brenda Crockett’s body the next morning.

And the murders continued. In October 1971, 12-year-old Nenomoshia Yates disappeared on the way home from the grocery store. Just two hours later, a teenager found her body. It was still warm.

With four young girls dead, D.C. police finally admitted that a serial killer was behind the murders.

The fifth victim went missing six weeks later. While on the way home from a local high school, 18-year-old Brenda Woodard went missing. Police found her body the next morning. And they discovered a clue that would leave detectives baffled.

The killer had left a note in Woodard’s pocket.

“This is tantamount to my insensitivity to people especially women. I will admit the others when you catch me if you can!”

The note was signed “Freeway Phantom.”

The killer had apparently dictated the note to Woodard before strangling her, as it was scrawled in her handwriting.

Suspects in the Freeway Phantom Killings

After Woodard’s death, the Freeway Phantom seemed to vanish. Months went by without another murder. Until ten months later, when police found the body of 17-year-old Diane Williams on the side of the freeway.

Emboldened, the Freeway Phantom called Williams’s parents and told them, “I killed your daughter.”

With local police at a dead end, the FBI took over the case in 1974. And they settled on a suspect. Robert Askins has already served time for killing a sex worker. A warrant turned up suspicious items in Askins’ house, including photos of girls and a knife tied to a different crime.

But none of the evidence linked Askins with the six victims of the Freeway Phantom. A jury eventually sent Askins to prison for life after he kidnapped and raped two other women.

Another theory pointed to the Green Vega Gang, a group of five men who kidnapped and raped women during the same time period that the Freeway Phantom struck. But again, no evidence tied the rapists to the Freeway Phantom case.

Why The ‘Freeway Phantom’ Remains Unidentified

As the years passed, the Freeway Phantom investigation remained open. In 2009, D.C. police admitted that they’d lost the case file. Evidence from the crimes, including possible DNA from the Freeway Phantom, was gone.

“Maybe it’s over there in some box and we haven’t stumbled across it,” said Detective Jim Trainum. “Who knows?”

Detectives continued to investigate, attempting to rebuild the files. And the $150,000 reward for information in the case remains unclaimed.

The tragic deaths left behind grieving families.

“We were devastated,” said Wilma Harper, the aunt of Diane Williams. “At first it didn’t register in my head that she was really dead, but the reality soon hit home.”

Harper founded The Freeway Phantom Organization to support the friends and family members of murder victims. The families of the six girls also supported each other.

“At first, I couldn’t talk to anyone or even look at pictures,” Mary Woodard, the mother of Brenda, said. “People say they know what you’re going through but unless you’ve actually experienced the tragedy, you really don’t know. Sharing with someone who’s gone through the same thing helped me to deal better.”

While the Freeway Phantom case remains open, the Freeway Phantom Organization continues to draw attention to unsolved murders and support the families of victims.

“It’s a two-way street,” Harper said in a 1987 interview. “The police can’t do it all by themselves. Members of the community have to consider it important enough to get involved and see that these murders are put to a stop.”

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The Freeway Phantom case remains open – and there’s still a $150,000 reward in the case. Next, read about other cold cases that continue to baffle detectives. Then learn about the Chicago Strangler, who may have killed 50 people.

A nurse from Queens, New York, Marie Van Brittan Brown created the first video home security system in 1966, paving the way for the technology we use today.

As a nurse living in Queens, Marie Van Brittan Brown was used to working the night shift. And in the 1960s, Brown’s husband, Albert, also worked unusual hours as an electronics technician.

Brown didn’t always feel safe as she walked through the neighborhood at night, and crime was on the rise with a 32 percent increase between 1960 and 1965 in Queens. Even once she reached their apartment, Brown worried about her safety.

She knew that an emergency call might mean waiting for police to show up. So Brown decided to take her safety into her own hands — and created the first home security system.

Who Was Marie Van Brittan Brown?

Born on Oct. 30, 1922, Marie Van Brittan Brown grew up in Queens. She married Albert Brown and had two children with him.

The Browns raised their children in a small house at 151-58 135th Avenue in South Jamaica, New York. The predominantly Black neighborhood sat across the Belt Parkway from Idlewild Airport – renamed John F. Kennedy Airport in 1963.

Brown was trained as a nurse, but she also had an inventive mind. In her early 40s, Brown developed the first home security system that used a motorized camera, remote door unlocking, an intercom, and a button to call police.

Designing The First Home Security System

In the mid-1960s, the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens was saturated with crime. Often home alone in their apartment, Brown feared she might become a target for break ins.

Hers was a common fear, but then Brown came up with a unique solution. She designed a home security system that started with the front door. Instead of a single peephole, Brown’s system had three. Each peephole was at a different height to ascertain whether the visitor was an adult or a child.

But the peepholes weren’t meant for Brown. Instead, a camera attached to the door would slide up and down to peer through the holes, ensuring that the viewer could watch from a monitor located a safe distance from the door — or anywhere else in the house.

In order to accomplish that, Marie Van Brittan Brown turned to a cutting-edge technology of the 1960s: closed-circuit television. Originally developed by the military during World War II, CCTV was still rare in Brown’s day, and one tech magazine speculated that it might be used by medical students to learn surgical procedures.

Brown had a different idea. CCTV would make it possible to see who was outside your door from anywhere in the house – even in bed.

But Brown didn’t stop there. She also conceived of an intercom attachment so that homeowners could speak to visitors without walking to the door. On top of that, the system also came with a radio button to call the police.

“The security station may be equipped with video and audio receiving equipment to monitor the video and audio signals,” Brown wrote in her patent application. “The monitoring of these signals will occur under control of the house occupant.”

Brown even ingeniously conceived of a remote unlock function so occupants could lock or unlock the door at a distance. She then turned to her husband, Albert, to design the system with his electrical know-how. Their finished product would be the first motorized camera and monitor system.

Patenting The Brown Security System

In 1966, Marie Van Brittan Brown filed a patent for her security system – which she described as a “home security system utilizing television surveillance.”

As the technical expert behind the system, Albert Brown was also listed on the patent. In the patent application, Brown outlined the system as “a video and audio security system for a house under control of an occupant.”

Brown stressed how important it was that the homeowner was given the power to control their own security system. Instead of relying on police to respond to calls, the security system put more control into the hands of everyday people.

Three years later, in 1969, the U.S. Patent Office granted her the first patent for a home security system.

The news broke in The New York Times. While the patent application listed Marie’s name first, the paper credited Albert Brown and “his wife, Marie,” with the invention.

“With the patented system, a woman alone in the house could alarm the neighborhood immediately by pressing a button, and installed in a doctor’s office it might prevent holdups by drug addicts,” the paper reported.

The next step was to get the system installed in people’s homes.

Installing the Brown Security System

After receiving her patent, Marie Van Brittan Brown planned to install her security system in her own Queens apartment while looking for a manufacturer to produce it. But here, they ran into a few problems.

For one, the security system was so advanced that the technology was prohibitively expensive. “The cost of installing it would be pretty high,” Dr. Robert McCrie told Smithsonian Magazine.

It would take decades before technology costs dropped enough to market a home security system for private residences. Companies only began selling CCTV for residential consumers in the mid-2000s, almost half a century after Brown’s invention.

But Brown’s invention still made its mark. More than 30 U.S. patents referenced Brown’s patent filing, including many later home security systems. In 2021, Amazon even referenced Brown in its patent for “wireless speaker devices for audio/video recording and communication devices.”

Brown also received an award from the National Scientists Committee.

Marie and Albert raised their two children in Queens. Their daughter followed Brown’s footsteps by becoming a nurse and inventor. Marie Van Brittan Brown died in 1999.

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Marie Van Brittan Brown made history with her invention. Next, read about the life-saving inventions of Garrett Morgan, and then learn about seven Black inventors who changed history.