Fatal plunge on 23rd St.
A Long Island woman visiting her aunt in Chelsea leaped to her death on Friday morning, June 26, from the roof of the Selis Manor residence on W. 23rd St.
Susan Pogolowitz, 43, had told her aunt, Flo Fox, that she was going to the roof of the 12-story residence for the blind at 135 W. 23rd St. for a smoke. “Ten minutes later, I thought something was wrong, because she never took more than a few puffs of a cigarette,” said Fox, a photographer whose work has appeared in The Villager.
Fox, who is legally blind and uses a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis, recalled that a policeman in the elevator told her he was investigating the suicide of a woman who had just jumped to her death.
Fox said she went down to the ground floor with her home attendant, who recognized Pogolowitz’s sweater, visible at the edge of the tarp covering the body. Pogolowitz had been in and out of mental institutions most of her life, Fox said. “She was always depressed; her parents and brother had just moved to Florida and her boyfriend had decided to live separately,” said Fox.
Police had been looking for the victim’s handbag, but didn’t find one. “A blind guy knocked on my door Saturday and gave me a bag that he found in a planter on the roof,” said Fox. “It was her bag, but there wasn’t any note in it,” she said.
Protest antigay assault
City Councilmember Christine Quinn took to the steps of City Hall on Sat. June 26 to protest what she charged was the mishandling of an antigay assault in Chelsea a week earlier.
John Solis, 39, a legal secretary who was leaving a street fair on Ninth Ave. at W. 28th St. at 9:30 p.m. was attacked by two men who shouted antigay epithets and hit him with a bat, according to police. He was treated at St. Vincent’s Hospital for a broken wrist and face lacerations.
Quinn and Solis said last week that the two Housing police officers who responded to his complaint were dismissive and didn’t call the ambulance immediately. Solis said that a former policeman relative called the department and the case was reassigned to the Hate Crimes Task Force.
The suspects were described only as black men in their 20s.
Death on No. 1 line
Two gunmen shot a victim in the face while riding on a northbound No. 1 train shortly before 9 p.m. Tues. June 22 just before the train pulled into the 23rd St. station, police said. The suspects fled and the victim, Sanford Nelson, 29, of Brooklyn, was declared dead at 9:25 p.m. at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
Passengers, some spattered with the victim’s blood, ducked for cover or fled in horror to other cars, according to reports.
The shooter was described as a bald black man in his 20s wearing a white T-shirt with blue letters and carrying a knapsack. An accomplice was described as a black man in his 20s about 6 ft. and wearing blue jeans and a blue Lakers jersey. Both fled south on Seventh Ave. after leaving the station, police said.
Chelsea gay bash
Three men shouted antigay remarks at a man walking on W. 14th St. at Ninth Ave. at about 10:30 a.m. Mon. June 21 and then punched him in the face, police said. The victim, 41, didn’t report the assault until Wednesday morning, police said.
Albert Amateau
