By Gus Saltonstall
A man who operates a newsstand on the Upper West Side was attacked and robbed at gunpoint on Monday afternoon, according to police and the victim.
The Rag visited Sha, who preferred not to provide his last name, at his 81st Street and Columbus Avenue newsstand, a few hours after the incident to find out what happened.
Sha was working inside the UWS newsstand around 1:10 p.m., when two men barged through the door, according to police and his own account.
One of the men punched him in the face, knocking him down, and then pressed a gun to his chest, Sha told the Rag. NYPD also said that one of the men had a knife. The two men proceeded to take $2,200 from the cash register, according to Sha.
Sha has operated a newsstand at the location for the last year and a half.
Monday’s incident is the second time the stand has been robbed.
“I came to the Upper West Side because I heard it was safe,” he said to the Rag. Sha added that he had never been robbed in his prior 14 years of operating a newsstand in New York City.
The NYPD spokesperson said it was unknown as of Monday at 5 p.m., whether the Upper West Side newsstand robbery was connected to another newsstand that was robbed on the Upper East Side just 20 minutes earlier.
Police did say that the suspects had fled the Upper East Side robbery on an MTA bus.
There have been no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing.
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The trauma and sense of violation this guy experienced…. one block from a police station.
For all the democrats that keep voting for this insanity…I’m old enough to remember when we had “tough on crime Democrats” — we should vote that back in. This poor man. I am stunned this happened in broad daylight. Once again, the city is unsafe…we had a good run under the Giuliani and Bloomberg years. Que the naysayers telling me we are all safe and crime is down!
We have a police officer for mayor, this term is as Giuliani as it can get.
I sincerely doubt the perpetrators care about your political position. The key is legislation and there are plenty of law and order Democrats, but we just have to get them into office. The problem is the bad bail reform laws. It all needs to be fixed.
We did have a good run under the old Giuliani before he lost his mind and Bloomberg. But, the City isn’t as bad you seem to think. I’m sorry this happened to this hard working gentleman.
I think the word you’re looking for is “cue”.
It sounds to me like you’re upset that the NYPD isn’t doing their job effectively. Why not say that? And whether you choose to believe it or not, violent crime was much higher during the Giuliani administration than it is now. The difference is that in, say, 1995, an incident like this would have gotten 30 seconds on the evening news and a couple of column inches on page 10 of the Daily News. If you missed those, you’d never know about it. Nowadays, with social media, apps like Citizen, and blogs like this one, it’s almost impossible to not hear about something like this. And algorithms that strive for the most views put these sorts of incidents in front of our faces repeatedly, so we feel that we’re hearing about violent crime constantly..
I frequently hear this narrative that crime isn’t actually bad it’s just a “perception problem.” The mayor has tried used this canard as well. This is a form of gaslighting.
However people know what they see on the street and they know what their friends, family colleagues see as well.
Your comment is contradictory. You admit that we are better informed now and then claim and also claim this as the reason for a problem of perception. Further this site is a neighborhood paper and is not run by “algorithms that strives for the most views.”
Do you truly believe that crime (especially violent crime) is worse now than in the early 1990s? If so, you either weren’t living here at the time, or have a short memory.
Where did I “admit” that we’re “better informed” now? I’m an IT guy; I don’t believe I’m qualified to comment on the quality of news reporting today vs. 30 years ago. I did point out was that we’re repeatedly bombarded by reports of the same incident. I do not believe that quantity is in any way beneficial to quality in this case.
This site is not a “neighborhood paper”; it’s a blog. Newspapers get tossed out at the end of the day, and whatever didn’t get read (as well as what did!) is gone from our sight forever. If you want to see yesterday’s (or last month’s) reporting on the West Side Rag, all you have to do is scroll down a bit. There’s much to be said for this, of course, but it does impact perceptions to see the same item multiple times (I don’t know about you, but when I read the Rag, I scroll down until I see a familiar article, and I know I’m caught up.
As for algorithms, where did I say that the Rag in particular uses such algorithms? But if you think that every social media app and every “news” website doesn’t employ such algorithms to manipulate you into maximizing the number of eyes on a page, you’ve been deceived.
Please stop making this into a Democrats vs. Republicans issue. The Republicans have sold their souls to the devil with Trump, so they are a non-starter. There are plenty of moderate Democrats who are tough on crime. I agree that we need to be tougher on crime with stricter penalties to deter potential criminals. But most readers here tuned you out after your first sentence.
I have requested this before and perhaps I missed it, but I would greatly appreciate it if WSR did an article about what the penalty is if caught for a crime like this. And does that penalty change after multiple offenses? A concise education on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Out of curiosity how else do you explain this “new normal” of regular and bold violent crime? How else do you explain if not for failed policies of the last 8 or so years?
Dinkins passed the bill that greatly increased the size of police force and crime rates started to come down under Dinkins, but he never gets the credit he deserves.
Crime was lowest in NYC under DeBlasio. Including murders. That’s a fact. Crime ruight nwo is much lower than under even the final Giuliani years.
And lets not forget the amount of police abuse incidents and shootings of innocent people — Amadou Diallo, etc. 00 that were never addressed under Giuliani. It was hardly utopia.
Giuliani ran this city like it was an occupied country, Bloomberg ran it like a business, De Blasio ran it like a 6-year-old trying to figure out how many legs he can rip off a spider and it can still crawl. Adams, don’t get me started.
We did have a “good run” under Giuliani and Bloomberg, but they don’t get all the credit. While New York City experienced a sharp decrease in violent crime (sharper than any other big city in America, in fact), it was part of a larger nationwide trend, the causes of which are still being debated. If you’re interested, take a look here: https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf
1:10 PM on what day? Monday?
Strange location for such violent daylight robbery.
No it’s not. This is the new normal. That’s part of what makes it so disturbing.
Escaped on a bus? That’s the icing on the cake. I’m sure they didn’t pay their fare either. What a place this has become
I NEVER get on the subway without seeing someone beat the turnstile.
They fled on a bus, which I’m sure they didn’t pay the fare for. What a statement about law enforcement that they robbed a newsstand on Broadway in broad daylight and then “got away” on the slowest form of transportation known to man.
Here’s hoping the bus these bums jumped on had WORKING security cameras inside.
Hope so. I’m also hopeful that our criminal justice system is founded on more than a bus camera.
The Republican Party so criminals get locked up and fear being locked up! OBV this “leadership” we have doesn’t work. You all know it!!!
The UWS is not safe if you are Middle Eastern looking, whether it is crime or whether you are stereotyped for no reason.
There were over 7000 murders in NYC when Rudy Giuliani was mayor.He was a Republican.
He was mayor for eight years. In the FOUR years immediately preceding him there were 8,340 murders under Dinkins.
Actually, if you don’t include the 2,753 people killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11, the number of murders during Giuliani 8 years as mayor was 4,247, averaging 530 per year. The years before he became mayor, the murder rate was above 2,000 per year. I’m no Giuliani fan, believe me, but let’s get the facts straight.
That’s 7,000 over 8 years. Average around 890 per year. Prior to Giuliani the murder rate was around 1,500 to 2,000 per year.
He inherited 2000+ from Dinkins and brought it down steadily during his 8 years so I guess u mean total murders in 2 terms
This just happened all the way crosstown at the newsstand at York and 79th. Took the cash and fled on the 79 crosstown. This is just sad that folks can’t make an honest living owning a newsstand and their lives at risk. The city is continuing to degrade and it’s sad.
This is terrible! I feel for him and I hope he gets compensated, and that the criminals are apprehended, convicted, and NOT released back into the streets to rob again.
the problem is IMPUNITY. even when caught they’re given light sentences if any.
This is so ridiculous, and yet unsurprising. There is a police precinct literally less than a block away, but you would be hard-pressed to find ANY police presence on foot in the UWS, ever. They like to sit in their cars, or stand in clusters looking at their phones, but god forbid they walk a damn beat!
That was the best part about the Bloomberg years. I would see cops outside their cars, standing on Broadway in pairs. My then-toddler loved to wave at them. They were friendly, and their presence helped make Broadway feel safe and built community. Nowadays, they sequester themselves away and shrug their shoulders when things happen. If I hear one more thing about bail reform being the issue, I will scream–it is not bail reform as much as it is that they have realized they are getting paid whether they patrol or whether they play Candy Crush.
Everyone rips on Alvin Bragg, but he can only work with what he was given. Let’s face it, it was Cyrus Vance who got us into this mess with allowing people to waltz through turnstiles and onto buses without fear of prosecution. Not to mention his giving a free pass to rich men who sexually assaulted poor women–ahem, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Jeffrey Epstein, Robert Hadden, and Harvey Weinstein. History should judge him harshly.
Exactly! There’s recently been a patrol car stationed at 70th / Columbus, but 90% of the time the officers are just sitting in the car or circled up playing on their phones. Last time I walked by I could hear the youtube video playing… What exactly are they supposed to be accomplishing?
UWS Dad,
The City has placed NYPD near various migrant shelters – in this case, the former Stratford Arms/former AMDA dorm building
So what does sitting in their car watching youtube videos accomplish? Shouldn’t they be walking the block?
Yup. Back in March when we had that brutally cold week of single-digit temperatures, there were two cops huddled in the vestibule of the CVS on 70th/West End for pretty much their entire shifts two days in a row. I get that no one wants to be outside in that weather, and if they came in every 45 minutes or so to warm up for a few minutes, I’d totally understand. But I live across the street from that CVS and I can tell you that they spent their entire shift in there.
Where is the police?
In midday, half a block from the precinct station on 81st. Hello, anyone home?
Wow, fled on a MYA bus Wow, MTA buses have some of the best cameras anywhere, these guys are going to be caught rick tick and, in a hurry, don’t feel bad guy’s not everyone is meant for life of crime.
Try to find on Youtube or Merit the Dr. Phil program about retail workers being attacked and occasionally fired just for not falling down when someone came at them. It was actually heartbreaking to see what workers go through.