By Carol Tannenhauser
Shots were fired between midnight and 1 a.m., Wednesday, on Amsterdam Avenue and West 94th Street, a police spokesperson confirmed to West Side Rag. “Something’s happening there,” he said.
At 12:42 a.m., we got a tip from a reader that read as follows:
At about 12:20 am, July 26, I heard a couple of loud bangs that I assumed were fireworks, but a few minutes later the street was crawling with cops. There were what looked like 8 marked and unmarked cars at one point backing up Amsterdam for the whole block. I saw them carry a child or small person to an ambulance, which didn’t leave. Most of the activity occurred around the bodega on the west side of Amsterdam and 94th St. W. 93rd st is also backed up with first responder vehicles, though I don’t know if that is regarding the same incident.
As of now, the police are releasing no further details. We’ll keep you posted. Thanks to Caroline, for the tip and photographs.
UPDATE, Wednesday, July 27, 6 a.m.:
At around 12:25 a.m., Wednesday, several men in a gray Toyota sedan pulled up to Amsterdam Avenue and West 94th Street and opened fire on an intended male target, according to NYPD. Instead, their gunfire hit two “innocent bystanders,” an NYPD spokesperson told WSR. A four-year-old boy, who was outside with his mother, suffered a graze wound on his left leg. A 35-year-old man, unrelated to the boy (and not the intended target), received a graze wound to his left foot. Both victims were transported to Weill Cornell Medical Center in stable condition, police said. The shooters fled in the sedan, heading northbound on Amsterdam Avenue. The investigation is continuing, NYPD said. — Update by Joy Bergmann
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Something was going on at Amsterdam and 70th just now too, around 2:30. First screams, then police and ambulance that stayed there for a long time.
I heard someone screaming “police!”, then saw a police car, then ambulance that didn’t leave for a long time. I think they took a person in.
Wondering what was going on. It was next to that monster high rise at 200 Amsterdam.
Nothing like the 70s, right?
No. There were crimes like this in the 90s, early 2000s, 2010s, etc. There were massively MORE crimes like this in the 70s and 80s and 90s.
No matter how much you wish it, that doesn’t make it true.
Here we go with the sensationalization again Just go look at the crime stats . This is nowhere near the 70s . Provide some reference to that type of hype , people actually read this stuff and if you make a statement back it up with more than just an opinion
Why can’t we provide just an opinion? That’s what the comments are for. The reporters have to do their research before publishing their articles; commentaries are not the same thing.
It’s not an opinion. It’s a loaded question attempting to pass as a fact, which by definition can be proven true or false. An opinion would be something like: “it feels as bad as the 70’s to me.”
Not when your opinion is used for dangerous pro police ( funding to stop “crime”)racist ( more policing in minority neighborhoods) propaganda. All this does is hype people up so we can send more tax payer money towards institutions that don’t need it . Let’s keep it real . It’s like people know it’s nowhere near the 70s yet they still spout that nonsense . Why spew lies fully knowing they are lies . That’s dangerous and dishonest . And why do people also believe that by expanding the police force we can stop crime? How about equal access ? How about proper wages and living conditions? How about we use all this money to mandate that the government provide well paying jobs, decent education and healthcare . Why is it that the first option is always police ? Do you really think people commit crimes for the heck of it ? It’s time to go to the root cause not leave the root cause and just address the symptoms. In addition if there is a shooting people need to realize we (U.S.A.)are the number 1 weapons manufacturer in the WORLD , seriously , what do you expect ?
So from a simple question you read that I support racism, I openly lie, and I am unconcerned with root causes? I proffer you AG, are missing the analysis by a long distance. Crime is a function of risk and reward. Am I better off robbing someone with low risk of capture and low risk of consequence versus working for an hour at any given job? Please don’t lecture about government providing jobs. We are not France. We have a long history of working for what you get. Government’s job is providing policing and incarceration for miscreants. Lots of open legal jobs for those with the ability to show up on time every day and make an effort.
It must be nice to look at the perpetrators of crime through the lenses “rose-colored glasses”. Yes, there are people who are without moral or ethical compasses, and crime is their preferred activity.
Of course people commit crimes for the heck of it.
How many do you know who are running around robbing stores with carts because they haven’t eaten in 3 days – while the church next door serves free lunch?
How many gangbangers riding around the city robbing people at gunpoint are doing it to pay large healthcare bills?
You think the perps pulling necklaces and attacking women in the parks are doing to pay for the kids’ school notebooks?
Peaceful NYC metro area gives you unsupportable living conditions? Ever been to Rwanda? Myanmar? Front-line Ukraine?
Get a grip.
Totally agree. Poverty isn’t driving this kind of crime, culture is. Want a good life? Make it for yourself. The government didn’t build this country, private citizens who took the social contract and their attendant duties seriously did. I’ve seen what unconstrained gov’t largesse does to a country and its people (eg. Brazil), and can promise you we don’t want that. Most valuable lesson I’ve learned: no one cares as much about you as you do. Get it together, people.
A.G., the problem is not the money. There is plenty of money to go around. Have you questioned where the money is being used within the city budget? Look at all the so called social programs to address the root causes of some of these issues.
Look at the city’s payroll under Bloomberg and during the DeBlasio years and you’ll get a better picture of where all the money is going. We are putting forth record city budgets yearly. And it’s not all going to the NYPD.
Do you recall DeBlasio’s wife’s billion dollar budget for mental health. She had her own staff to tackle this project with $1million+ in payroll for staff. How did that work out?
The city has always had plenty of money to go around. People who have recently governed and led had not used that money wisely. We need a business person to lead this city because we are on a path of financial ruin.
Amazing how this city needs to tax the rich more yet we magically find the $4billion to house migrants this past year or the almost.billion dollars the city spent to house the homeless in hotels during covid.
City council leadership should be held accountable for fiscal waste.
Right there citing “dangerous pro police propaganda you are making a big statement. The rest of the angry rant is even difficult to read, yet I believe in freedom of speech and the right of it to be published. However I find it unsubstantiated, empty and running on angry emotion only. Still your right.
All this because somebody said “not like 70s”? What is with this intolerance and attempt to shut up all dissenting opinions? We don’t need echo chambers, we come to this forum to express our views however different they might be
Yes, AG expressed AG’s opinion. But it’s easier to dismiss it as “intolerance” than to engage with its substance, isn’t it?
I live around the corner from 94tg and Amsterdam. There is a gathering of people there nightly doing business that the police do nothing to disperse.
The crime problem is real.
Yes!! There has been drug activity and other criminal activity on this corner for decades. I’m living up the block since 1983. It’s been a community problem forever. The shed over the sidewalk now contributes to the problem.
This is important. The police are NOT allowed to.
That is because the city laws allow loitering which is ridiculous and this is the best example why. They say it is a public space. It is NOT a “public” area when it’s right in front of the shop who by law has to take care of that sidewalk. Not fair to the small business owner and it enables something like this where the business becomes a hang out. That store owner has no rights to protect his business to make them leave which is RIDICULOUS and UNSAFE.
Always has been at that bodega.
Crime is real and is a problem. That’s not the point though, is it?
Bravo, A.G. There is such a thing as verifiable truth and facts. Thank you.
A citywide network of speed and red light cameras would help track cars after these kinds of incidents.
Would only work if NYPD was serious about cracking down on obscured license plates
A citywide network of high-resolution cameras everywhere it what we need.
The world would be better if these gangbangers were better shots. The 4 year old will suffer life long trauma from this senseless act.
I’ve always said the same thing. Unfortunately, these dudes aren’t doing target practice. They’re just walking around with powerful, dangerous weapons that they can barely operate, let alone master. So stupid. So ridiculously stupid. That culture—the petty violence, misogyny, drug nonsense—needs to be shamed out of existence. It’s grotesque.
Exactly!!
I hope the shooters are found, arrested, convicted, and imprisoned.
Relatedly, incidents like these are precisely why the city needs a much more extensive network of automated traffic enforcement cameras and a truly meaningful crackdown on expired and fake license plates.
“Somethings happening there ” Buffalo Springfield fan?
We have lived in our Upper Westside neighborhood for 40 years. We moved here on Memorial Day in 1983. Back then we lived through heroin addicts “tripping” at 93rd and Broadway, (there was a pay phone on that corner and I called the police, as I had never seen someone in that situation. They showed up, laughed, and told me not to worry, he was just an addict.) We walked by prostitutes servicing their customers in the below street level areas of the brownstones, crack vials all over the street as little children attempted to pick up the colorfully topped small plastic containers. At one time our building and a group of other buildings in the neighborhood hired private, off duty police to patrol the area late night to early morning to keep the pushers out of the neighborhood.
And with all that, we have never seen it this bad.
New Yorkers have to wake up and vote in true law & order candidates. Until then it will only get worse.
I lived there then also – and you are correct. There was crime but it stayed in it’s “crime bubble” – we dealt with the crack tops on the stoops in the morning & everything else you mentioned. But the crime now is deadly – It has spread like a fungus across blocks which were relatively crime free. And for those who compare crime stats – it is not a true reflection since crime has been relabeled and realigned so what was once a felony, is not one anymore. People PLEASE vote law & order candidates – sometimes you have to go hard to get things under control and then pull back. But this is out of control. Collectively people have to do something.
The current mayor ran as a “law and order candidate.”
Which tells you how little power he has. The state legislature, DAs, and governor are setting the standards here.
The UWS today is nowhere near what you just described in the 80s… the stats don’t back you up either.
When you don’t arrest and charge people for breaking the law, the stats will not show that felonies have taken place.
Therefore, the stats show lower crime rates. It’s simple math.
Oh, these stats again… most of us know well that these stars are not reliable.
Even if you ignore the stats then you are left with Janis’ description of the UWS in the 80s which absolutely sounds way worse than the UWS today
If you don’t accept the statistics, what are you left with? Feelings? Anecdotes? Isn’t that just another way of saying that only you get to decide what objective reality is for all of us?
this is sad Mr.Rogers song will have to be revised soon because lately it has not been no darn beautiful day in no neighborhoods.
“opened fire on an intended male target” means somebody knows what this was about. dying of curiosity
710 Amsterdam has been under scaffolding for over five years now and been allowed to essentially crumble in every possible way – a portion of the shed itself collapsed just two weeks ago. The area outside the bodega is a round the clock hub for drug traffic, peddling, public drug use, loitering, you name it. Many of us have made multiple complaints to 311 and the 24th precinct to no avail. Now this….and thank god this little boy is ok, but what if the outcome were worse?! What do we do?
As someone in this building, whose four year old slept on the second floor near the front windows as this gun fire rung out, who has for years put up with the degradation of the building, internally and externally, I can say that the city knows full-well of the issues in the building, has full knowledge of the degenerate and negligent building ownership and have largely been ignoring the issue. Something more has to be done, but I have yet to find a path for resolution, even with outreach to state senators, the community board, 311, DOB, HPD, etc.
That’s also a popular area for homeless people to sleep, so much that they put up a sign trying to keep people away.
Correction – address should read 700 Amsterdam, not 710
Not as bad as the 70s … but not great either. So is it okay if it’s less awful? No. We need to deal with a reality that the upper west side has real quality of life and crime problems. Cops on the beat would help. A lot of things would help. What doesn’t help is the argument that it could be worse.
If I ever need a cop, I walk up to the station on 82nd. That’s where they hole up…I have to say, they are very nice. Just not out and about looking out for us citizens and taxpayers.
Well said.
What people fail to realize is we’re not far behind San Francisco amd Chicago.
NYC can be next if this course isn’t corrected.
Not recognizing that there is a major problem is being naive.