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In Remembrance of Trailblazing Private Investigator Alice Bryne
New York’s own female Sherlock Holmes broke ground, glass ceilings, and stereotypes about women.
Alice M. Byrne, a long-time New York private investigator and founder of Alice Byrne Investigations Inc., passed away one month ago after a life-long battle with Multiple Sclerosis.
Alice was renowned in her profession, recognized by President Ronald Reagan as “an outstanding woman” and former NY Governor Mario Cuomo as “a woman of distinction in the field of business.”
Early Life
Byrne was orphaned in her late teens after both parents passed away. In spite of this hardship, she pushed herself through St. Vincent’s nursing school, where she worked until suffering from a heart attack at the age of 27.
Divorced in 1975, Bryne accumulated enough money to buy a small burglar-alarm and security-guard company from her ex husband, which she later built into a successful investigative firm.
Despite the predominance of males in the profession at the time, more and more women like Byrne were getting involved in investigative work. At a time when most female professionals in the field advertised using only a first initial, she deliberately listed her full name in the Yellow Pages advertisement for her company “because I…