By Gus Saltonstall
Two teenagers had a knife flashed at them in a robbery attempt Monday evening on the Upper West Side, a police spokesperson told West Side Rag.
Two boys — one 16, one 17 — were standing on the southeast corner of West 78th Street and Columbus Avenue around 5:30 p.m. when two males walked up to them, flashed a knife, and demanded that they hand over their belongings, NYPD said.
The confrontation was interrupted, though, when a pedestrian walked by, prompting the two suspects to run away toward West 79th Street and Columbus, police said. No one was injured, and police said nothing was taken from the two teenagers.
Police added no arrests had been made as of Tuesday morning, and the investigation remains ongoing. Police did not have a description of the two males with the knife, and it is unclear if they were also teenagers or adults.
The area around 78th Street and Columbus is generally a bustling one, as it is close to the Museum of Natural History, Theodore Roosevelt Park, and a popular Shake Shack location.
We will update this story when more is learned.
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Who was that masked man?
What a truly bizarre response.
Not really – how can there be no description at all from 2 kids held up in daylight??
My corner. Beyond unsettling.
And everyone thought the 70s was dangerous.
West 78th Street might be
Wasn’t some Danish tourist slashed on the face there recently?
No, that was some blocks north.
In the ‘60s and ‘70s, 78th and Columbus was a drug hub….
You, sir, have won the internet.
I grew up on the UWS in the 1970s. At that time, everyone knew that if you walk around, you must always be aware of who’s in front of you, who’s on your left and right sides, and especially who’s in back of you at all times. Even today, it’s good to remember that.
And stop looking down at your phone. Women especially, be aware and d your surroundings.
It’s worse — now so many (especially kids) are not only looking at their phones but also have their ears plugged up, listening to something other than what’s around them.
Be aware of your surroundings — what you can see and what you can hear. The rest will wait until you get home.
“shown” not “flashed”
It’s getting better!
It wasn’t a gun that was flashed.
In the 1970s in Times Square, he would have flashed something else.
Hey kids make sure mom and dad give you some mugging money before you leave for school in the morning.
Was about to say that we did used to have that, but then again nobody was constantly glued to their handheld computers when walking outside, and it goes without saying that those devices are worth exponentially more than the mugger money our parents gave us (or could ever have afforded)
When I was a kid every morning my mother would give me two dollars – one to buy lunch at school, the other for the muggers.
One day I decided to buy baseball cards with the extra dollar. When the mugger asked me for the dollar I told him I spent it on baseball cards. He said “I’m going to tell your mother”.
I’m surprised he didn’t ask what cards they were? They could have potentially been worth a lot more than a dollar. You can take my life, but you can never take my Mantle rookie card!
Please! If someone “walking by” scares and deters a would be armed robbery, doesn’t it make sense to have some police officers walking the beat? If that was a norm perhaps armed robberies would not be occurring so often. Feeling unsafe in one’s own neighborhood should not be the norm.
Get rid of Crumbl cookie on w. 74th and watch crime go down.
Not sure I follow. Is it because Crumbl cookies are a drug?
Stand across the street and watch the crowd it attracts with its terrible products.
Will do.
A rumble at the Crumbl
They most definitely are, DogParent, a drug I had to quit 🙁
My goodness, I am scared to walk this neighborhood anymore. It has really gone downhill. So dangerous nowadays. I’m tired of hearing comparisons to the 1970s and 1980s as if that rationalizes the fear and violence we are living with today.
Uphill isn’t always better for a neighborhood, is it. If we aren’t attracting more police, we are certainly attracting more crooks these days.
Vote better or move.
I voted for Curtis Sliwa. I’ll take him any day over what we have now
Me too and I will again.
It is a no-brainer.
Meanwhile all the local Dems just endorsed Bragg…
Yet another obvious example of why Trump won.
Why go back to the 1970s/1980s, when all we really have to do is go back to the 1940s/1950s.