Complaints about the phone system with the police back then are interesting. Perhaps other calls were made but ignored. Or underestimated by the cranky call-taker because they might have been reported as a drunk incident rather than murder.
If such calls were made those police would keep a lid on it and prosecutors had no interest in pointing that out at the trial.
For sure the NYT reporter spiced up the story and put specific knowledge into "witnesses" minds they didn't have.
First of all, remember that a key Timesman here is A. M. Rosenthal, who was the most conservative Times columnist in memory, including Bill Safire. In fact, wasn't Rosenthal fired, about 10-15 years ago, for being too conservative?
Second, the New York Times did not make up the idea that people should have called the police and did not. The Times was just writing up the outrage of the police detectives.
Was the story exaggerated? Yes. Did it have mistakes? Yes, daily papers have no fact checkers and are full of mistakes. But the story was not completely wrong in spirit. There were members of the public who should have called the police but did not because they feared embarrassment should there be no real problem. Also, most likely, several citizens did not call the police because they hoped someone else was -- bad decision, since it appears that it sometimes took several calls to the police to consider a situation high priority.
Bottom line. If my wife or I suspect trouble, we call the police. If the original outrage of the New York detectives, and the Times story, contributed to others being the same, a service was rendered, albeit in a sloppy way.