The gritty, true blue story of two remarkable cops and an equally
extraordinary nurse who provided the spirit and smarts that transformed
Fear City into the safest big city in America.
NEW YORK'S FINEST is the story of a city's transformation through the
tireless efforts of Detective Steven McDonald, Nurse Justiniano, Jack
Maple, and a host of hero cops--including the great niece of Jazz Age
great Josephine Baker--the finest of The Finest. The son and grandson of
cops, Officer McDonald was shot and paralyzed from the neck down while
on patrol in 1986. The doctors said that if he did survive, he would be
better off dead. It was then he came under the care of one Nurse Nina
Justiniano. Where the teenage gunman was produced by the worst of
Harlem's social ills, she personified its many graces, rescuing Steven
from despair and urging him to transcend hate and bitterness.
McDonald was then promoted to detective at the urging of NYPD Deputy
Commissioner Jack Maple, a postal worker's son who sported a bow tie,
Homburg hat, and two-tone shoes as he implemented transformative
crime-fighting strategies to deter violent subway robberies. Coming up
in the force, Maple had been routinely mocked for imagining the
impossible: that Times Square would one day be a destination for
families and tourists.
Now, resentments and tensions are mounting in the same neighborhoods
that most benefited from the careful consideration of officers like
McDonald and Maple. But as NEW YORK'S FINEST illustrates, their
legacies, and those of people like Nurse Justiniano, may well rescue New
York City from its present state of unrest and struggle in the wake of
protests and the pandemic.
