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MAN SHOT IN THE HEAD AT CITY DINER

July 16, 2015 | 8:50 AM - Updated on June 5, 2022 | 11:30 PM
in CRIME, NEWS
65

shooting city diner
NYPD released this image of the man wanted for the shooting.

A 24-year-old man was shot in the head by another man around 3:45 a.m. Thursday inside City Diner at 90th street and Broadway.

The shooter walked into the diner and ordered corn beef hash and eggs when he saw the victim sitting in a booth with a woman; he went over and asked “Do I know you from somewhere?” police told the Post. The two spoke and then the shooter left the restaurant. He returned and paid for his order — the video below shows him waiting for his order, police said — but before leaving he went by the victim’s table again and shot him point-blank in the head. The bullet apparently grazed his head and he was able to get himself to the hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.


Shooting at UWS's City Diner by Gothamist

The shooter is described as a black man in his 20’s who is about 6 feet tall. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477).

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65 Comments
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Nelson
Nelson
9 years ago

So sad. The UWS: everything old is new again.

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Reply
Christina
Christina
9 years ago
Reply to  Nelson

Yes! It’s very sad! What comes around goes around! 🙁

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Dave
Dave
9 years ago
Reply to  Nelson

Or in the case of City Diner their tagline is, “Just Like it Used to Be”

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zeus
zeus
9 years ago

For sure it was not a registered gun.

NYC is on the fast lane to the past.

Welcome back to the 1970’s.

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JR
JR
9 years ago

Nothing good happens at 3:45 am.

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Christina
Christina
9 years ago
Reply to  JR

Ok, it must be only me that has a dirty mind then! Oh well!

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UWSGal
UWSGal
9 years ago
Reply to  Christina

Haha. No, I’m there with you!
Thank goodness for the victim the bullet missed him. Folks this is the face of mid-21st Century Manhattan. Two-faced: rich poor not much middle. Thanks for nothing Bloomberg.

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NativeNYer
NativeNYer
9 years ago
Reply to  UWSGal

Well said, UWSGal. Bloomberg finished what Koch started all those year ago.

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Christina
Christina
9 years ago
Reply to  JR

That’s for sure!!!
…Unless you’re in bed!

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Cato
Cato
9 years ago
Reply to  Christina

Nah. You can get shot there too.

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Paul RL
Paul RL
9 years ago
Reply to  Cato

Or worse.

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Dave
Dave
9 years ago

My Saturday morning tradition of breakfast at City Diner barely survived the departure of Lucy, but this may be enough to put an end to it all together.

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Paul RL
Paul RL
9 years ago

Welcome to the Upper Wild West Side. I spoke with one of the owners of City Diner this morning and he seemed to be in good spirits despite the incident. Thankfully no one was hurt except the one drug dealer who was grazed in the head by the other drug dealer, who apparently was a lousy shot since he missed from about 5 inches away. Or maybe he was just shaky from feeling giddy that nobody stopped, questioned, or frisked him on the way to the diner.

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Mike
Mike
9 years ago
Reply to  Paul RL

Even if they could, what reason would the cops have had to stop and frisk the shooter?

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Upper West Side Wally
Upper West Side Wally
9 years ago
Reply to  Mike

You’re not allowed to ask that question. Civil rights are trumped by mass hysteria.

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Paul RL
Paul RL
9 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Mike,

1) Supposedly he was a known drug dealer.
2) Drug dealers are known to carry not just drugs, but guns.
3) There is probably lots of drug dealing going on at 3:45 am.
4) If I were a known drug dealer and were concerned about being stopped, questioned, or frisked (because I was a known drug dealer) perhaps I would be less likely to carry a gun. Or maybe I would even be less likely to sell drugs.
5) Then you and I might be able to go to our favorite diner at 3:45 am and wolf down a club sandwich without worrying about ingesting a stray bullet for dessert.

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D.R.
D.R.
9 years ago
Reply to  Paul RL

Bruce, if you *know* he’s a dealer, and you “know* (as Paul says) that dealers carry guns, why is he on the street? He’s a danger. People lose their lives from stray bullets fired by in-fighting drug dealers.

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Bruce Bernstein
Bruce Bernstein
9 years ago
Reply to  Paul RL

… and i doubt City Diner is “your favorite diner”, but if so i invite you to join me there any night at 3:45 AM for a sandwich. I have been there plenty of times… without worry.

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Paul RL
Paul RL
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Bernstein

I think you mean the Metro Diner and Manhattan Diner (which was the old Key West.) City Diner edges out Metro for the food, but I much prefer Metro’s window booth seating. Manhattan Diner runs a distant third in both cases.

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Bruce Bernstein
Bruce Bernstein
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Bernstein

i mean i have been there plenty of times at 3:45 AM or thereabouts… and will keep going without worry.

You and I agree on something, which is the cole slaw at City Diner is superb, and much better than at its two “sister diners” (same owner), Manhattan and Key West. i will have to try the Club Sandwich.

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Paul RL
Paul RL
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Bernstein

But it IS my favorite diner. The club sandwich and coleslaw are to die for, although sometimes I opt for the salmon Niçoise salad. Gotta watch my svelte figure, you know.

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Bruce Bernstein
Bruce Bernstein
9 years ago
Reply to  Paul RL

known drug dealers can be and are stopped and frisked today, and you know that. so stop trying to USE this to promote a political agenda.

what has changed is racial profiling based stop and frisk. stopping and frisking a known drug dealer is not “racial profiling.”

and under the old racist policy, the police would not set up a “stop and frisk” operation on Bway and 90th at 3:45 AM.

this is pure demagoguery.

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Bruce Bernstein
Bruce Bernstein
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Bernstein

DR said:

“But why, Bruce, are *known* drug dealers still on the street?”

seriously? you can’t think of a reason? does everyone get life without parole for every crime in your perfect world?

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Bruce Bernstein
Bruce Bernstein
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Bernstein

yes, i meant Metro and Manhattan Diners.

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Reply
D.R.
D.R.
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Bernstein

But why, Bruce, are *known* drug dealers still on the street?

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UWS_lifer
UWS_lifer
9 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Ummm…how about dealing drugs, carrying a deadly weapon, loitering, etc.

Why do you defend this scum in our neighborhood, Mike?? Are you going to rebut every comment? We get it…you’re a liberal and a protector of scumbag criminals over tax paying parents and elderly neighbors. Got it.

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Mark
Mark
9 years ago
Reply to  UWS_lifer

You left out being black

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UWS_lifer
UWS_lifer
9 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Who’s the one using race now, huh? So typical, lose the argument and then play the race card in desperation.

So basically are you implying that all scumbags and criminals and people that mean to do harm are black?? Why would you say that? Nobody mentioned anything about color or race or ethnicity or whatever you want to call it. Trust me, plenty of hispanic and white guys are committing crimes as well.

Just stop with the race baiting just cause you are scared of black people or whatever. Thanks. One Love.

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Mike
Mike
9 years ago
Reply to  UWS_lifer

How would the cops know he has any of those things on him?
I’m not a liberal, I am just curious as to why you think the cops would randomly stop and frisk the guy.

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AC
AC
9 years ago

Recently learned that DelBasio was a staff member in Koch and Dinkins’ Mayoral Administration.

It does feel like we’re living in the 197o/80’s again!

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Christina
Christina
9 years ago
Reply to  AC

Koch was a good Mayor! Dinkins not so much!

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NativeNYer
NativeNYer
9 years ago
Reply to  Christina

Sorry, but Koch was not a good mayor. He was financed heavily by the real estate crowd. Rents jumped 17 percent during his first year in office, and many people were forced to leave their apartments – rent stabilized and controlled. When it was discovered that Koch maintained a $60 a month rent controlled apartment in the Village, he moved to fancier digs. I watched him on a news broadcast – during his first year in office- reply to an elderly man, who lived in an SRO, during a public meeting about housing and rising rents: “You can’t expect to live and work here.” I recall strolling through a street fair on the Upper West Side in the late 1970’s when Koch showed up with his entourage. He was loudly booed, and he was forced to leave. The “How am I doing” King Koch was silenced by his subjects. I recall seeing signs in the windows of mom and pop stores with a picture of Koch encircled in red with a slash over it.

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Christina
Christina
9 years ago
Reply to  NativeNYer

@ NativeNYerYou are talking about his first year in office??!!! He was mayor for 12 years!! He had so many ups and downs during this city’s very trying times. The city he inherited, the challenges he faced, the resources available to meet those challenges and the extent to which his work endured beyond his term — historians and political experts generally give Koch mixed-to-good reviews.
He is credited with leading the city government back from near bankruptcy in the 1970s to prosperity in the 1980s. He was overwhelmed by corruption scandals in his administration and by racial divisions that his critics contended he sometimes made worse. Confronted with the deficits and the constraints of the city’s brush with bankruptcy in 1975, he held down spending, subdued the municipal unions, restored the city’s creditworthiness, revived a moribund capital budget, began work on long-neglected bridges and streets, cut antipoverty programs and tried to reduce the friction between Manhattan and the more tradition-minded other boroughs.Mr. Koch markedly improved the city’s finances in his second term. Helped by a surging local economy, state aid and rising tax revenues, the city government, with a $500 million surplus, rehired workers and restored many municipal services. He also made plans for major housing programs, improvements in education and efforts to reduce welfare dependency. No one accused Mr. Koch of any wrongdoing. Most of the accused were not his appointees, and none were senior advisers; he had always kept a distance from his commissioners, letting them run their departments with relative independence.By the end of his last term, he was tired (as anyone would be under the city’s conditions over the 12 years he was in office) and times were definitely changing with the Reagan era! I could elaborate on more examples of good and bad qualities but I too am tired and it would take too long!

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Mike
Mike
9 years ago
Reply to  AC

Say de Blasio’s goal was to return NYC to the cesspool that it was in the 80’s/early 90’s. What would be his reason for doing so?
No mayor or policing strategy has had anything to do with the reduction in violent crime, as it is a national trend.

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anon
anon
9 years ago
Reply to  Mike

more affordable housing? 🙂

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zeus
zeus
9 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Mike,
It was NOT a national trend.
It was mayor G & mayor B who took the bull by the horn and brought crime down, way down in NYC.
Keep on saying to yourself it is just a passing thing.
And stop & frisk was just nothing, and had nothing to do with bringing crime down.
Mayor DB is a fluke. He’ll never be re-elected.
Of course, he just may do so, because so many libs think he’s the cats meow.
Well, many others don’t.

To quote Stevie Wonder, circa 1970’s:
“New York city, just like I pictured it – up against the wall MF”.
Yeah…well…welcome to the roaring ’70’s.

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ctp
ctp
9 years ago
Reply to  zeus

p.s. I am a dirty, bleeding heart liberal and I did not vote for Deblasio and I think he is a complete joke. Don’t bring political parties into this, anyone who was elected out of that poor pool of candidates would have had to do something about stop and frisk, even Casimatidis.

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ctp
ctp
9 years ago
Reply to  zeus

I have to disagree, I don’t think you lived here when Giuliani was mayor for his first time in 1994 or before that either, but I am sure you will say you did, so whatever. But the decline in crime was directly related to the decline in crack cocaine use in the city prior to the day Giuliani took office in 1994. He was very pleased to take all the credit for the reduction in crime, even though, as anyone can tell you, things began getting better during the Dinkins administration, not because of Dinkins, but because of the state of the world, both the economy and the nature of drug use in the City. The second factor was, actually, Bill Bratton who instituted CompStat in the NYPD (it was started under his watch though not by him, in the NY transit police department and worked well) which furthered the trend toward broken windows policing (which I agree with in most parts), but what you might not realize is that Giuliani and Bratton had a bad relationship and Giuliani got rid of him after just 2 years on the job as police commissioner. But, again, Giuliani was more than happy to take full credit for the reduction in crime even though it had been started in 1990 by a different policing agency and a completely different administration.

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Dan
Dan
9 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Mike, with all due respect, how was the sharp decline in violent crime within the five boroughs not related to a certain policing strategy implemented under certain mayors? The decline HERE began with proactive enforcement based on the often maligned “broken windows theory.” When speaking on such things, you must remember that NYC typically sets the trends for the rest of the nation. The NYPD’s proven methods and programs are often employed elsewhere in the nation and tend to produce similarly positive results. Is it possible that violent crime saw a decline over the 1990’s and into the 2000’s because of almost nationwide adoption of proactive policing measures based on NYC’s success? I can assure you that the violent felon’s union did not organize a nationwide slowdown.

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Joan Paylo
Joan Paylo
9 years ago

And many of us remember when it was the storied Argo diner.

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Christina
Christina
9 years ago
Reply to  Joan Paylo

We used to say “Arg…No” Kids!:D Then when I was a bit older Argo and 3 Brothers were the diners we went to at 3 or 4 in the morning ( in the 70’s and 80’s) after a night out partying. Nothing like getting a full breakfast after drinking and who knows what all night! Ah the memories. Btw… I never felt threatened when going to these places at 3 am. Besides we would be in groups.

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joe
joe
9 years ago
Reply to  Joan Paylo

and before that it was called Starks

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MLM
MLM
9 years ago

I’ve been a regular customer of City Diner even before it was City Diner. Good food, Good prices. Pleasant staff. It’s a shame that things happen like this. I’ve obviously been a westsider for a long time. It is still my “home” radical, liberal, gentrified. Glad no one died, and glad it wasn’t a staff person or “innocent” customer who was hurt.

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Off Duty
Off Duty
9 years ago

“two men”
Don’t you just love the candor in this story?

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ed
ed
9 years ago

I grew up in that area in the 70’s into the 80’s. I hope its not going to return to all the drug dealers and prostitutes that were along that whole strip of B,way. Koch and Dinkins did not help at all.

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Steve
Steve
9 years ago

Every crime is a return to the 1970s. If only it were so…

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Reply
Ant-Man_88
Ant-Man_88
9 years ago
Reply to  Steve

If only the rent would return to the 1970s.

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Reply
Cato
Cato
9 years ago

I’m getting worried about Bruce. Surely he would have weighed in here by now.

Maybe he’s on vacation….

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Bruce Bernstein
Bruce Bernstein
9 years ago
Reply to  Cato

thanks for your concern. i exposed just a tiny bit of the demogoguery in some postings above.

thankfully there are more and more sensible clear-headed people commenting… i’m not the only one fighting against all the misinformed blather.

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Paul RL
Paul RL
9 years ago
Reply to  Cato

His supercomputer probably jammed while he was inputting his statistics data. Give him time.

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Reply
D.R.
D.R.
9 years ago
Reply to  Cato

So am I, though I see that he did comment on the Monk piece on the 13th.

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Off Duty
Off Duty
9 years ago
Reply to  Cato

There’s a great old adage that comes to mind….
“If ten people tell you you’re drunk….sit down”.
He MUST be on vacation.

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Ted
Ted
9 years ago

At least it happened in the diner and not on the street where if the city council has their way he could have fallen in a fresh pool of urine or been run over by a bike riding on the sidewalk.

Now “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war”.

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Jeremy
Jeremy
9 years ago

If it was a bank or a Starbucks or a walk-in medical clinic, it woulda been closed.

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Reply
Cato
Cato
9 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy

Give it a year or so.

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H
H
9 years ago

Some of you make good points and others are simply spewing talking point rhetorics based on a political bias left or right. As far as policing strategies go I think the stop and frisk got out of hand to a degree where walking while black/hispanic was probable cause for a stop and frisk. Police officers became lazy as they could use that as an easy way to police a community. The downside of such a policy is that it leads to the violation of one or more groups civil rights. It also degrades the relationship between police and a community as statistics showed that 9 out of 10 black and latinos that were stopped during the stop/frisk heyday were guilty of nothing nor found to have any drugs or weapons. There needs to be a balance of good policing where officers treat civilians with respect and to stop viewing everyone as a criminal. Civilians also have to understand the difficult situations police officers are in as well and have respect for authority. If both groups of people did that than communities would help out police more, crime would be lower, and the relationship would improve. You are always going to have some criminals as well as some very bad police officers. But viewing everyone as a criminal and every cop as corrupt/abusive serves no purpose.

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adam i
adam i
9 years ago
Reply to  H

H – thanks for saying what I was thinking better than I was going to try and say it. There is a sad lack of empathy and objectivity in too many replies.

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Carol
Carol
9 years ago
Reply to  adam i

I think you just want things to be more moderate and less extreme, and I can go along with some of that, but I’ll jump in the judge-y pool and say that I doubt being judged makes responders feel more empathetic and objective. I think feeling like someone is listening might create some empathy. What is sad to me is that so many people are misunderstood and clearly do not get to be heard and understood.

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Christine E
Christine E
9 years ago

Check out the photo — the shooter calmly left with his take out order after the shooting??

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Reply
Mike
Mike
9 years ago
Reply to  Christine E

No he didn’t. He paid for his food, left it on the counter to go shoot the guy and then ran out of the diner.

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Paul RL
Paul RL
9 years ago
Reply to  Mike

I hope he exhibited proper diner etiquette and left a tip even though it was a “to go” order.

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CS
CS
9 years ago

Very scary and not good.
But at 3:45 am, could happen anywhere.
This is not a “blame the Mayor” thing.

Let’s not forget that shootings happen everywhere sadly – tragedies such as the 2012 murders of school children in Connecticut, the Colorado movie theater murders or the recent murders of churchgoers in Charleston.

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Christina
Christina
9 years ago
Reply to  CS

Very true! Well said!!

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Jean
Jean
9 years ago

In an earlier life I think this restaurant was STARKS. I used to eat there when I was a kid. Somehow I don’t feel any place is safe at 3:00am but this goes on everywhere. I don’t think this was random. Why would it be? To get into a gang through initiation?

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LucyFan
LucyFan
9 years ago

@Dave…I didn’t know Lucy left!!! Haven’t been there in a couple of months for breakfast obviously. When did she leave? Heartbroken – she was a sweetheart.

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