May 14, 2009
If Etan Patz is remembered for anything, hopefully it will not be the dubious distinction of being the first missing child to appear on the side of a milk carton. The boy, only six at the time of his disappearance, vanished from Manhattan’s Soho District nearly thirty years ago. His disappearance brought national attention to the missing child epidemic in America.
On May 25, 1979, Stanley and Julie Patz conceded to let their six year old son Etan walk to the bus stop alone. The boy had spent weeks pestering his parents to allow him to walk the two blocks to the bus stop alone like all the other boys his age. Naturally overprotective, Julie Patz ran a preschool from the family’s Soho loft, the Patz’s were wary of letting their young son make the journey by himself. Eventually, they relented and conceded that Etan was, in fact, growing up and walking the 400 feet to the bus stop would be a necessary concession. So, they allowed Etan to make the journey alone.
Etan left the house dressed in an outfit of his own choosing: blue pants, blue corduroy jacket, and blue sneakers with distinctive fluorescent stripes along the sides. He wore his trademark black "Future Flight Captain" pilot's cap, expressing his wish to one day fly commercial airplanes. Julie walked Etan downstairs to the street and gave him a dollar for a soft drink at the local bodega. She watched him as he prproceeded to the first corner at Wooster Street. As soon as he turned the corner, Julie turned and went back into the house confident that Etan would cross the last 150 feet to the bus stop untroubled. That was the last time she would see her son.
Etan never made it to school; nor did he make it to the bus stop. A woman who lived nearby saw Etan standing on the corner of Wooster and Prince, a relatively quiet intersection, waiting to cross. A mailman also saw him at that same intersection. They were the last known people to see Etan Patz.
As school let out, Julie Patz waited patiently for her neighbor, who normally picked up Etan from the bus stop, to drop off her son. He never came. Etan hadn’t come off the bus and the neighbor had assumed that Etan had stayed home and Julie hadn’t called as she usually did. At the Patzes' loft, Julie was beginning to worry. She called her neighbor only to find that Etan had not disembarked from the bus, nor had he attended school that day. Frantic she called the police. The search for Etan had begun.
The massive manhunt for Etan Patz marked one of the first and largest missing child searches in recent American history. The police appealed to the public for help, seeking any tip that could lead to the boy's whereabouts. Hotlines were set up, and calls soon began pouring in. Neighborhood residents helped in the search, papering the city with color posters of Etan's face and joining nearly 100 police officers in scouring Manhattan. No leads were found that day, nor for several years.
Part II of the Etan Patz story to come.
