Don't make eye contact, or the Kitty Genovese Effect

Growing up in New York, one of the first lessons of social behavior is: do NOT make eye contact. The New Yorker is enculturated to manage crowded subway platforms and busy sidewalks by intentionally avoiding those seemingly harmless interactions that can evolve into awkward, perhaps even unsafe, social situations.
Unfortunately, while the unspoken rule is conducive to getting from point A to point B without incident, when it is applied in a community level it may lead to dire consequences.
The case of Kitty Genovese,although long past,continues t draws a sharp picture of the social harm caused by the exaggerated notion of "avoiding eye contact" when the numerous witnesses choose to stay out of a precarious situation that does not involve them. As Martin Ginsberg describes in his essay,Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police," For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman..."
How could this happen? The standard of community assumes a relationship for mutual benefit of its citizens. When does the internal warning to avoid eye contact - to stay out of it- become the belief that involving oneself in ensuring the well being of a neighbor is an inconvenience?
While the brutal stabbing of Kitty Genovese occurred over 45 years ago, one wonders how much has changed? Turn on the nightly news and hear the story of a gang rape on a Middle School campus with witnesses recording every detail on their cell phones.Kitty was a young woman screaming for help, relying on her community to respond to her pleas. Within a comnmunity, like Kew Gardens or even that Middle School schoolyard. a victim reasonably expects the protection of neighbors or community members. The aid Kitty receives, in this case, is a shout from an apartment window, "...Let that girl alone!"
Yes it was dark and several local residents explain an uncertainty of what was actually taking place, but the disturbing indecision exhibited by any to get involved depicts an ongoing issue for modern society.
One neighbor, Gansberg writes:
...had called the police
after much deliberation.
He had phoned a friend in
Nassau County for advice,
and then he had crossed
the roof of the building
to the apartment of the
elderly woman to get her
to call.

Meanwhile, Kitty Genovese is dying in the street. Time and time again, hearing her cries and uncertain what to do, if anything, the mebers of her community put self-interest over community health; refusing to get involved when a neighbor's life is at stake.
When an individual on the street looks away it allows the a sense of personal security. When a community "avoids eye contact" it's a failure to protect the well-being of its citizens.