02/17/1993
   NEW YORK (UPI) -- Two city officials Wednesday returned to the
scene of a brutal crime -- an automated bank machine lobby where a
police sergeant was gunned down -- to declare a pioneering security
law is now in effect city wide.
   The law requires banks in the city to install video surveillance
and recording devices, adequate lighting, safety mirrors, warning
posters and open views from the outside.
   In the next 18 months, following a task force report on more
restrictive door access, banks must adopt new technology or employ
guards after normal banking hours.
   City Councilmembers Ronnie Eldridge and Walter McCaffrey were the
prime sponsors of the law, which went into effect this week.
   Saying it was the toughest such municipal law in the nation,
McCaffrey said, "Other cities in the country have had problems like
murders (at bank machines) and have stuck their heads into the
ground."
   Banks appear to be complying, the two lawmakers said after a
visit to the blustery southwest corner of 57th Street and Eighth
Avenue, at the Manufacturers Hanover bank machine lobby where armed
gunmen shot and killed off-duty Sgt. Keith Levine as he responded to
a holdup.
   That Dec. 28, 1991, shooting, the near-fatal shooting of an
assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and hundreds of reported
robberies heightened public concern about safety at bank automated
teller machines, or ATMs.
   Before Mayor David Dinkins signed the law last August, major
banks testified against it as threatening higher costs for bank
customers.
   "It was clear from the start that the banks did not want this,
but with the law now going into effect, I believe we are making ATM
facilities safer for the citizens of New York City," said Eldridge,
a Democrat who represents the Upper West side and who herself was
robbed at a bank machine.
   "People are seeing changes. A number of banks in Manhattan are
using guards, which at this point is not a requirement of the
legislation," said McCaffrey, a Queens Democrat, who said his
constituents have reported feeling better as banks have gradually
installed required lights, mirrors and cameras.
   "One of the reasons for this is that people should feel they have
an even chance when they go to an ATM at night," he said.