Due to Precinct 78 of Brooklyn, NY catagorizing bike theft as "petty theft," I had to play a do-it-yourself-detective. Not one police officer was remotely interested in the video footage despite the convenience of me having the footage on a pocket video recorder that I brought to the police station on two occasions.

Fickr photo of outside the Prospect Park YMCA depicting the two "security" cameras, one that is non-functional, the other is extremely limiting in its line-of-sight: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14406767@N05/3705735685/size...

Alot of interesting information about the security system at the YMCA on 9th street in Brooklyn, NY has now become documented, along with other info about the security system for a large store on 9th street.

Persistent, this led to getting on to local news - http://tr.im/xjBu

Boston has this new system, utilizing technology and collective intelligence - http://www.stolenbikesboston.com

Other interesting links found on bikes and theft:
http://www.biketree.com
http://tr.im/xjnL (Tokyo bike parking vending machine)
http://tr.im/xjrU (Great story of Tokyo police fighting bike crime)
http://tr.im/xhQA ("amusing" NYC video how some NYer's don't care when bikes are stolen) (less info)