[4] Funding for the museum was criticized and classified by some as the buying of police protection for a given area at the expense of another that could not afford to broker a similar deal.

[6] Throughout its history, the museum's locations have included a 1972 Plymouth Fury,[7] a model of a jail cell, a timeline of transportation,[8] lock-picking tools belonging to Willie Sutton, an extensive exhibit on September 11 that occupies the museum's third floor, and a Hall of Heroes that includes the name and badge of every NYPD officer killed in the line of duty, starting with David Martin on August 6, 1861.

[11] The museum, which was originally a gallery housed at the New York City Police Academy on East 20th Street has operated in a number of temporary and semi-permanent locations in Manhattan during its history.

[12] From its January 2000 opening at 26 Broadway near Bowling Green,[13] the museum was privately run with support from the city, including more than ten years of free rent[5] and staffing by police officers.

Among the exhibits at the new location were: a display of the evolution of police uniforms since their inception in 1853, a gun used by Al Capone's gang in the 1928 murder of Frankie Yale, the first machine gun used in a gangland killing in New York,[14] and a gift from Italy to the City of New York following the assassination of Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino in Sicily in 1909, the only member of NYPD to be killed in the line of duty on foreign soil.

[5] Other exhibits include a green and white radio car, antique firearms and a wooden desk from the 46th Precinct in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx.

Then-police chief Howard Safir faced criticism for a deal, later rejected, with a business group that offered to pay for renovations at the museum in exchange for a police substation in the financial district.