AMERICAN SCENE: Big Eye on the Great White Way

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Clad in two sweaters, a woolen coat and a flamboyantly flowing scarf, Mrs. Mary Kearns was making her customary grand entrance on New York City's Great White Way. Dreamily murmuring about the Queen of England and other famous folks whom she had never known, she settled her diminutive form on one of the concrete flower boxes on an island in the middle of Times Square. Oblivious to the shouts and screeches of one of the world's busiest intersections, she did not notice the gang of young toughs approaching her. Then one of the gang shoved a hand into the old woman's pocket. As if from nowhere, a policeman ran up and collared the kid while his companions fled into the neon-drenched night.

The surprise rescue of Mrs. Kearns, a Times Square regular, was accomplished with the aid of a police device that some zealous civil libertarians call "Big Brother" and that Police Lieut. Ira Berg describes as the "good shepherd tending his sheep." It is a TV eye that relentlessly scans round the clock for any sign of crime. One camera sweeps the Times Square area; two other stationary cameras provide a picture of the south-side of 45th Street west of Broadway, which is a big street for theaters, and a fourth is aimed at Shubert Alley paralleling Broadway.

Housed in a blue and white trailer in the middle of Times Square, a patrolman keeps his eyes on four screens for the first flicker of something going wrong. He can phone a squad car that will appear on the scene in as little as 30 seconds, or he can rush out himself to nab a thug, as Patrolman Jim Ray did in the case of Mrs. Kearns. Says Lieut. Berg: "It is as if we provide a cop at every door where the camera goes."

Likely Prey. The cameras were put in last September because the Great White Way was in danger of becoming the great dark way. Legitimate theaters and respectable restaurants have been imperiled by an invasion of porno movie houses, peep shows, sleazy eateries and a grab bag of other dubious enterprises. Understandably, this kind of low-life smorgasbord attracts some of the strangest night creatures ever to adorn a modern city. They range from nattily dressed black pimps in high heels to gaudily painted transvestites to the "Christmas-tree man," whose head, coat, shut and pants are festooned with tinsel and trinkets. Snaking stealthily through this Brueghelian scene in search of likely prey are a host of Manhattan's pickpockets, strong-arm muggers, and flimflam artists, as well as an occasional rapist.

In an effort to fight these worms eating at the core of the Big Apple, merchants, theater owners and the New York Times, which is located just off the square, put up $15,000 for the TV monitors. Similar systems have been tried in other U.S. cities with varying success. If the setup works in Times Square, TV cameras may be installed in other crime-infested areas of the city.

The system will be put to a severe test on New Year's Eve, when tens of thousands of people will collect in and around Times Square to watch the lighted white ball drop from the Allied Chemical Tower at midnight. The presence of so many potential victims attracts a swarm of predators every year.

For the monitoring cops, Times Square will be an action-packed late late show.