By Gus Saltonstall
Steps from an entrance to Central Park near West 63rd Street is a fenced-in, elevated area holding a patch of grass and a huge piece of bedrock. There is also a smattering of trees, squirrels, birds — and lately — snow.
It is the area where a man made a home over the past six months or so: a Black man, standing slightly under six feet tall, with gray facial hair, generally donning a hoodie, surrounded by bags of his belongings.
He slept on the rock.
He died on Friday.
That morning, Ellen Gavin and her dogs were taking their customary walk from their nearby apartment into the West 63rd Street entrance to the park. Gavin was anticipating her interaction with the man she knew as Jason.
She and her partner Melinda had first seen Jason, who appeared to be in his late 50s to early 60s, in November, when they let their dogs run off leash in the grassy fenced-off area.
“We saw him repeatedly, but he was never very open to us,” Gavin told West Side Rag. “He slept up there [on the rock], and for weeks he would avoid us. I felt like the dogs were running through his living room, and, at some point, we started talking to him, here and there.”
Those conversations grew longer at the beginning of December, after Gavin brought the man meatballs she had made from a well-known restaurant’s special recipe.
“When we saw him after, he started jabbering with joy, ‘This is the best meal I’ve ever had in my life, tell me how you prepared it,’ so I told him the recipe and he just lit up,” she said. “He was always reading The New York Times or a book. He loved reading recipes especially.”
One day, Gavin and Melinda brought Jason a portable chair and an electric blanket.
He “sweetly” declined the chair but happily took the blanket, which had a battery charge that would last for eight hours of added warmth.
“We started a conversation about how to charge it — and if he had a place to go when it was really cold,” Gavin told the Rag. “He assured us that he did, but it seemed like he really did not.”
Soon, Gavin learned that Jason was struggling to charge the blanket. So, a deal was struck.
Jason would leave the battery out in the morning, Gavin would pick it up and bring it back to her apartment, and Melinda would bring the fully-charged battery back during the afternoon dog walk.
“It was weird,” Gavin said, “because I got to a point where, when I was cooking, I was thinking ‘Oh, Jason is going to love this.'”
On Thursday afternoon, January 18, they brought him soup, a hot drink, and the battery that would provide eight hours of extra warmth.
It was brutally cold from January 15 to 19.
For the first time in over 700 days, it snowed more than an inch in Central Park.
That Monday, the low had been 23 degrees. Tuesday, 22 degrees. Wednesday, 17 degrees. Thursday, 22 degrees. And on Friday, 26 degrees.
When Gavin arrived on Friday morning, Jason was lying on the snow.
He was disoriented, his belongings were more scattered than usual, and he was incoherent.
Gavin alerted nearby police who quickly got an ambulance. She watched as it pulled away. She wouldn’t see Jason again.
NYPD confirmed that an unidentified man taken from Central Park died in a hospital on Friday after he initially became conscious and responsive within the ambulance. The medical examiner has yet to determine the cause of death.
“I just can’t tell you how erudite he was, how smart; he read all the time, he was in another world, he was an intellectual,” Gavin said. “He was very New York smart.”
Around noon on Saturday, Gavin received a call that he had died.
Upon hearing the news, her focus shifted instantly.
“Maybe if we can get his full name, we could find family,” she told the Rag. “I just wish we could find something to stop him from being a John Doe.”
Gavin decided to post on the neighborhood website NextDoor, in the hopes that another local might have more information.
Hundreds of people commented.
Numerous mentioned that they had taken notice of him within the park near West 63rd Street starting around March, and that many had small, pleasant interactions with him.
Surprisingly for Gavin, though, some people did not know him as Jason, but instead as either Dwayne or Thomas.
Gavin placed posters around the grassy area where he slept, asking if anybody had known him or had information about his identity.
That’s when Kirstin Floersheimer called.
“I knew him as Dwayne, and he was always very pleasant and kind,” Floersheimer, who also lives near the 63rd Street entrance and walks her dogs there daily, told the Rag.
Their relationship grew after Floersheimer made him soup in October.
“He told me he was vegan, which I also am, so a couple of times a month I would bring him food that I had made,” she said. “He was always really appreciative and kind, and would tell me how delicious everything was, and describe it in a way that was almost like a food critic.”
The man called Floersheimer “princess.”
“The first time I brought him food, I wrote him a little note and with his name, which he told me was Dwayne,” she said. “After I gave him the food, he yelled after me, ‘you spelled my name right, nobody ever spells my name right,’ and was laughing.”
Along with not yet releasing a cause of death, police have not announced a legal name for the man.
Gavin explained that there are clues that came in the form of comments from the man about growing up in the South, having a daughter, being in the Air Force, living for a period of time on West 57th Street, and someone telling him that “people from the towers were missing him.”
He said that he had only been living on the street for about eight months, which aligns with Upper West Siders first starting to see him around March 2023.
Gavin was able to look through the man’s belongings, which the Central Park Conservancy had possession of following his death. But instead of a clue or identification card, there were only frozen clothes, shoes, and vitamins.
“There must be family somewhere,” Gavin told the Rag.
This Sunday, she and other locals, as well as the Society for Ethical Culture, which is across the road from the West 63rd Street Central Park entrance, are hosting a vigil for the man that some knew as Jason, some as Dwayne, others still as Thomas.
“While we search for his name, identity and family, we want to honor his passing,” a poster for the event reads. “Come with a story about him, a candle, or flowers.”
People will meet at the Society for Ethical Culture (64th Street and Central Park West) at 3 p.m., before walking to the rock at 3:30 p.m.
If any reader has information related to the man, please email info@westsiderag.com
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Christ, this is sad. I hope people read this and are reminded that unhoused people are actual human beings just like the rest of us, not human garbage to be chased or locked away. Thanks to those who showed him kindness. I hope they find his family.
(Can’t help but wonder if he got substandard care or if there were other complications. You should be able to treat hypothermia.)
Unhoused? Really? Do you actually think he would have called himself unhoused? He was a homeless man who died tragically and hopefully his family will find out. I sincerely hope there are people who love him and mourn him.
And yes. It is possible he received substandard care. It is also possible he was tested too late for the treatment to work, or maybe other health issues were at play.
And as for treating homeless people like garbage. There is definitely a lack of empathy. It is hard to know when someone who is living on the streets wants food or will decline a sandwich. He sounds like he was an interesting man in need of help. This is a tragedy.
Unhoused, yes. We have created a society that does not provide safe, decent housing for many of its members. It’s not an inherent characteristics of those people, a failure to come equipped with a home.
Of course it is challenging to interact with people who may be seriously mentally ill. But sometimes it can be a lot harder in the imaginations of people making abstract blog comments about groups of people they’re not actually dealing with. I’m glad the people who were able to help him (to the extent they could) saw their way through to his humanity.
This is very touching. The people who were kind to him-thank you. This warmed my heart.
Please update us with this. His real name, any stories about him. We would like to know him, instead of someone disappearing the face of the earth. Wished we could have helped him.
This heartbreaking story demonstrates the laudable compassion but ultimate helplessness of ordinary New Yorkers in the face of a society that is indifferent to its most vulnerable members.
I can’t help but contrast the individual acts of compassion in this story with the unfiltered rage in the WSR comments whenever a shelter (or any housing in general) is proposed…
Build more homes to help the homeless!! It’s not that complicated
Tragic. Sleeping on a rock, in winter. Did he mention why he didn’t want to go to a shelter?
a lot of homeless people are wary of shelters – they are dangerous and inhospitable
The one I stayed at in Green Point, BK was fine. I was there last year for about a month. I was sent there from the Bowery Mission and had a caseworker after two or three days. Yes, I had a cell phone stolen and folks drank and smoked weed in the dorm but it was mostly safe. It was very clean too.
Since 2018 NYC has been sending newly released prisoners directly to city shelters. There’s no difference between Rikers or a men’s shelter. Assaults and theft are everyday occurrences. NYC homeless get treated far far worse than migrants who get hotel rooms, new clothes and ‘culturally appreciate ‘ meals. There are valid reasons why shelters are avoided. But nobody does anything to improve shelter conditions.
Where were newly released prisoners sent prior to 2018?
If they are released and have no place to go they are also homeless by definition. So homeless criminals and homeless poor souls housed together because I’m assuming it is difficult to take everyone’s story into consideration.
We have to have more SRO-like housing for the homeless like Jason/Jamal. They have been residents for a while. I’m sure social workers can make a case for someone like them to have a decent private room. After all we do it for the migrants.
The migrants–assuming they even get individual housing–are run out after 60 days.
Jamal, who I hope isn’t the man being spoken about on here, has often told me shelters are very dangerous, and he’s woken up with a knife to his throat in the middle of the night and his winter boots stolen.
He had his boots stolen. Maybe Jamal is another name he used. We bought him uggs with his permission that arrived the afternoon he died.
That’s where the priorities of shelter operators should be – security. It is easy just to open a shelter and slam people there and pocket millions. Security is expensive but it is absolutely necessary. City shouldn’t allow operators open shelters without acceptable level of security.
Thank you for this moving story – about “Jason” and those who were kind to him.
Might he be identified through his DNA?
I think I knew him as Jamal, if it’s the same person I’m thinking of. I always saw/see him on a bench near West 63rd and CPW. Can anyone confirm is this is the same person mentioned here? He was wearing black boots I gave him the last time I saw him and black sweatpants and an old coat with a black dufflebag. Jamal is around 6’5’’ though and not under 6 ft with around size 15 feet. I hope it’s not Jamal, though I feel very sad about Jason/Thomas/Dwayne.
Jamal, like Jason/Thomas/Dwayne, is also extremely intelligent, well read, and eloquent. I always try to stop and talk to him and ask him if he needs anything (knowing full well he needs everything). This makes me incredibly sad either way.
Not the same guy. Jason hung out on Columbus Ave, south east corner of either 67th or 69th. He would have his belongings by the lamp post and stand closer to the wall. I then started seeing him sleeping in the park. I wish he had gone into the subway station or a bank when it got real cold.
Hi, I’m the Ellen mentioned above. This is a sketch I did— not great. We are organizing a short vigil on Sunday. Please come. Do you have any more details about him? Even the smallest.
Hi Ellen! Although he was a very obviously intelligent man, it seemed to me that he was also unwell. He mentioned he was “Sonia Sotomayor’s twin sisters’ cousin,” that he was previously in the military, that his parents were very wealthy and lived in New Jersey, that he was in the twin towers when they were hit, and that he didn’t want to apply for food stamps because he thought the government was after him due to his being in the towers when they were hit. Unfortunately, given your comment about the towers above, I believe Jamal is Jason/Thomas/Dwayne. At what time is the vigil on Sunday?
I tried to post the invite with sketch but no option here. It’s at 3pm at the Center for Ethical Culture , 2 w 64th.
I wish I could see the sketch . I’m just hearing about all this now and wonder if this is a homeless man I often would see while photographing wildlife in the park
This is heartbreaking. Every unhoused person has a story and society treats them as disposable garbage. I wish there was a picture of him. Maybe someone took one while he was alive? It would be easier to, perhaps, find his daughter or family.
There is a large school yard outside of Brandies H>S. usable for after school activities.
Where are the police patrols to move students along.
PS reminder to Akismet to checks posts for civility not for political correctness.
So sad we have to shelter all of South America but we cannot take care of our own veterans. Sad.
Jamal, my friend I mentioned above, was adamant about not wanting to go to shelters. The issue isn’t about the inability to shelter or care for our veterans, but rather, how unsafe the shelters are that someone like Jamal would prefer to sleep outside in 12 degree weather.
People who say this kind of thing get mad when it comes to pay for veterans’ shelters, too. It’s always somebody else we should be helping.
Oh my, this is so sad. May he rest in peace.
Does anyone know what happened to”John” the homeless man living Broadway/85th St for 12+years. He has been missing from there for a month. Hope he is OK, psychotic but harmless.
Don’t know specifically what has happened to John of late but, over the years, he disappears periodically for several weeks or longer at a time, comes back all cleaned up and then goes slowly back downhill again, a repeating cycle. He is apparently enrolled in a homeless watch/tracking program and when he spirals down too far, the program comes by and collects him–I once was passing by some years ago as he was willingly entering a medical van in a straight jacket–and provides help and then John eventually returns to his spot. And the whole cycle starts over again … As for food, though John refuses all offers of food and money, sometimes if you leave a sandwich or other food item at his spot while he’s away or sleeping, he may later consume it.
I, and others tried to help him, he refused ALL help, food, money, clothing, and got angry if you tried,
This really saddens me. I walk daily in the park and have given Jason food and band aids which he asked for. He didn’t seem to want any help and I feel terrible not having alerted anyone as I’ve been gone for a week. May he rest in peace!
This sad story reminds me of another death some years ago of a homeless man named Arthur, who died on the steps of the church on 86th St. one frigid night. Most of us who walked our dogs in the park nearby knew Arthur, and many of us brought him food and tried to help him in whatever small ways we could. . He, too, was smart , well-read, and knew and appreciated good food. The New York Times did an article on him after his death — sadly, it looks like things haven’t changed. I’m grateful for the kindness that strangers showed to Jason —the ingenuity in keeping that electric blanket charged says it all.
So terribly sad that this intelligent, respectful independent soul should have become the victim of death by neglect and possibly freezing weather.
With all the billions of dollars being made available to house immigrants.. why cant there be better accountability regarding this massive amount of money so that homeless people of all kinds are given respect and a stable place to call their own.. A tiny studio with access to a bathroom should do it?
This tragic story is a reminder that we need to do a better job of informing the public about Code Blue. When temps fall below freezing, you can call 311 to report a vulnerable person sleeping in the street. They will send outreach teams to check on them and if necessary take to temporary shelter or drop-in centers (safer than shelters). I was an outreach worker for close to 20 years. There’s no reason for anyone to die like this. Call 311. And follow-up if the person is still on the street to make sure they are being monitored by a team. That’s the kindest thing you can do.
A very touching story. So sad….
We have our own ‘Gavin’, an Asian man who has to my knowledge, slept outside near Riverside Dr and 89th Street EVERY DAY year round for as long as I can remember. He sleeps sitting up on the concrete slabs of a rest area below the monument or on a park bench. I’m glad that I read here about the blanket that can be charged up. My undomiciled friend and I can’t communidate in words, (Chinese?) but we do smile back and forth and I try to give him money when I’m able. He drags his carts and waits patiently every night for a hot meal at the nearby church on West End. A couple of nights ago, we passed on 86th Street and his face looked so drawn and tired, like I’ve never seen it.
Please call 311 and request he get a visit from an outreach team. They won’t force him to leave but once they know where he is, they will monitor him to make sure he’s okay. People who stay in out of the way places like he does are at the highest risk.
A tragedy, but I’m moved by how kind people can be. Lord knows the world needs more of that nowadays.