Thread by @InsideEdition

It was a crime of passion that had every New Yorker rapt with attention in the summer of 1972. 3 armed men entered a Brooklyn bank, thinking it would be a straightforward heist, but fate had other plans. The event would go on to inspire a classic film. #NewYorkGritty 🎞️🧵:

1/ On Aug. 22, 1972, John Wojtowicz, Salvatore Naturile & Robert Westenberg attempted to rob a bank in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend. Unbeknownst to them, the money in the vault had already been collected earlier that day, leaving the branch with half the funds expected.

2/ Within minutes of the robbers entering the bank, a teller triggered an alarm that alerted police to the crime unfolding. Cops dashed to the scene on Avenue P in and formed a perimeter around the bank. 1 of the 3 would-be robbers fled once police showed up.

3/ The press arrived as quickly as police. All of the city was tuned into the robbery, either by radio or television, and it hit every late edition of the local newspapers before the day was through.

This is how the crime that inspired the 1975 film "Dog Day Afternoon" started.

4/ John Wojtowicz (b. 1945) grew up in Brooklyn w/ a Polish dad & an Italian-American mom. According to gay rights activist Randy Wicker, a Wojtowicz family friend, he was star of a local baseball team as a teenager, and was brought up in a strict conservative family.
📸: @IMDb

5/ After graduating high school, Wojtowicz worked at various banks in the city. By his early twenties, he worked at his local Chase Bank in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where he met his girlfriend, Carmen Bifulco, who worked there as well.

6/ They started dating in 1966, though her parents disapproved, according to the BBC. The same year, he was drafted into the Army, according to records obtained by the NYT. While in Vietnam, Wojtowicz had sexual experiences with men, according to Wicker.
📸: Unleashed Films

7/ He returned home from Vietnam in 1967 and immediately married Bifulco. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl and separated two years later after she reportedly found out about his affairs with men.
📸: Bifulco family

8/ He was honorably discharged from the military in 1969. That summer, the Stonewall riots became a watershed moment for gay rights. After he separated from his wife, Wojtowicz started calling himself LittleJohn Basso and began attending the Gay Activists Alliance's meetings.

9/ While Wojtowicz was a member, he caused a rift among those in the group, according to Wicker.

“His behavior was somewhat outrageous. They used to have dances down at the GAA. John would literally grab somebody on a couch by the coat room and start having [sex] right there.”

10/ Wojtowicz was ostracized by much of the GAA due to his antics but he still attended functions and events, Wicker said.

Then, in June 1971, at the annual Italian Feast of Saint Anthony in NYC’s Little Italy, he met drag queen and sex worker Elizabeth Eden and fell in love.

11/ Though still legally married to Bifulco, and 40 years before gay marriage was legalized in New York, Wojtowicz and Eden pledged their devotion to each other in a same-sex union in November 1971 at the GAA headquarters.
📸: Rich Wandel

12/ Ultimately, Wicker said, Wojtowicz and Eden's relationship would sour.

“He and Liz tried living together, but he apparently was very jealous and impossible to deal with. And he was also physically violent so she was afraid to get away from him.”

13/ Wicker says that Eden wanted to go through with a gender reassignment surgery but he says she was “terrified” of Wojtowicz because he “opposed” the process. Less than a year into their marriage, Eden had attempted suicide multiple times.

14/ In Aug. 1972, while being treated for self-inflicted harm, Eden was told she would be committed and given electroshock therapy, according to the doc film "The Dog."

At the same time, Wojtowicz was concocting a plan he believed would win his wife back and save his marriage.

For the full latest #NewYorkGritty piece “How the Bungled Brooklyn Bank Robbery That Inspired 'Dog Day Afternoon' Made 1 Man a Household Name”:
insideedition.com/how-the-bungle…