By Gus Saltonstall
An 83-year-old man has been missing from the Upper West Side for more than a week, police announced over the weekend.
John Ryan was last seen leaving his building at 145 West 108th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus, around 1:20 p.m. on August 29, police said.
NYPD described him as 5 feet, 10 inches tall, roughly 150 pounds, and last seen wearing a Yankees baseball hat, a black shirt, black pants, and black sneakers.
Here is the photo shared by authorities.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
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That’s WSFSSH’s newish building. How does a senior in supportive housing go missing for over a week without an alarm being raised earlier?
I saw this over the weekend.
This happened in my previous apt bldg (97&WEA) about 15 years ago, nothing to do with WSFSSH. The front desk staff noticed a fellow was missing, one who had no friendly family members around to notice. They found a way to get a photo and make a missing notice. After 2 weeks or so he was Identified in the 106 street New Jewish Home. This is the total of my experience in such matters. A man was found only due to big-hearted staff taking matters into their own hands.
Sarah, are you saying that WSFSSH has relationships with such places and should have checked them out earlier? Did they wait in notifying the police? I regret my ignorance. As an elder, I’d like to know what general procedures, and with whom, should be contacted when a neighbor”disappears.’
I’m saying that this building is mostly supportive housing–i.e., comes with bundled social services and should involve regular contact with each resident, because residents are vulnerable and struggle to live safely on their own for a variety of reasons. It’s probably different from the situation you live in.
If your neighbor who’s “disappeared” is a person living independently, you can request a wellness check by the police. Obviously, use your discretion–if they are mentally ill or you know they have a criminal record, you might want to wait a bit longer to do so, because any contact with the cops can be dangerous.
It’s definitely a struggle to balance respect for privacy with concern for our neighbors (in many aspects of NYC life!), but, in the classic supportive housing context, the balance has to tip more towards looking out for them.
The same comment comes up every time somebody goes missing and the police put out a photo. They don’t do it right away they usually wait about a week or else there would be a lot of photos all the time
i’ve seen it on city notifications of him missing. the Upper Westside rag is publishing it now and now he’s been missing for more than a week, but it’s only been published here today but in other places immediately.