By Albert Amateau
East Village homicide
A former convict was shot to death in a sixth-floor apartment at 85 E. 10th St. near Fourth Ave. shortly after 6 p.m. on Sun., May 22, police said. Christopher Manley, 33, who had been living in the building for less than a year, was heard arguing with two men at the door to his apartment shortly before two shots hit him in the head. Police said two suspects, described as black men in their 20s, fled and were seen running west on E. 10th St. and then south on Fourth Ave., police said.
Manley, who was last arrested on May 6 on a drug possession charge, served 15 months in prison after being convicted in 1988 of second-degree robbery in Manhattan, according to law enforcement authorities. Manley, who was not the tenant of record, had many visitors who came and went on bicycles, according to a New York Times article.
Traffic fatal
A Lower East Side resident was crossing the street at the corner of 17th St. and Third Ave. at 12:46 p.m. on Fri., May 20, when he was hit by a car, police said. Wah Jen Moy, 54, of 90 Pitt St., was taken to Cabrini Hospital where he was declared dead at 1:11 p.m. The driver stopped but was not charged and there was no criminality connected with the accident, police said.
Sues former club landlord
A patron of Sessa, the nightclub that used to be in the basement of the Carteret apartment tower at 208 W. 23rd St., is suing the club and the owner of the building, J.B.S. Properties L.L.C., for the injuries he sustained in a stabbing in November 2003 on the club’s dance floor. Sessa closed in February 2004 after the Police Department Legal Division filed a nuisance abatement action against the club and the building owner.
The plaintiff, Alex Delgado, 28, a Clinton resident, was stabbed during the early hours of Sun., Nov. 17, 2003, by an unknown assailant and was in the hospital for three days, bedridden for four weeks and out of work for 10 months, according to his lawyer, Steven Rosenfeld.
The club, owned by Stratis Morfogen, opened in 2002 as a successor to a previous club and had been the target of 30 police investigations between November 2002 and November 2003, including three felony arrests, one rape and 13 assaults, including stabbings and a robbery. Delgado’s assailant was never found.
Rosenfeld said the building owner is a defendant in the suit because he continued to rent space to the club after it was known as a danger to the neighborhood. As a result of the nuisance abatement action, J.S.B. Properties agreed after Feb. 4, 2004, not to lease the space to another nightclub
Manhole explosion
A short circuit in a Con Edison manhole at the corner of Broadway and Broome St. about 10 p.m. Thurs., May 19, caused a fire and a build up of carbon monoxide, followed by an explosion, according to Ian Michaels, spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Protection.
D.E.P. workers opened up the street around the site.
“Whenever there’s a carbon monoxide build-up, our HAZMAT crew opens the street to air it out and we send crew members to neighboring buildings to find any seepage into basements. If there is carbon monoxide in a building where people are asleep, it could be very dangerous. But we didn’t detect anything,” Michaels said.
Four thieves
Four men, all dressed in black, walked into the Ann Taylor shop at 555 Broadway near Prince St. in Soho at 3:30 p.m. Fri., May 6, and walked out with assorted merchandise, police said. While one of them distracted the sales representative, the others gathered shoes, accessories, a jacket and headwear, police said. They all fled on foot.
Burglar flees
A resident of 160 Prince St., near Thompson St., found a man trying to break into the front door of the building with a screwdriver at 3 p.m. Wed., May 11, police said. The burglar, described as Asian or Pacific Islander, 5 feet, 6 inches tall, about 130 pounds, light complexion, straight black hair and wearing a blue shirt, fled at the approach of the resident.
Belts indeed
Thieves broke a front door and lifted the roll-down gate of the Scott Mallory men’s shop at 158 Spring St. in Soho on Sun., April 24, and took a sterling silver belt buckle with diamonds valued at $2,800, another silver belt buckle with sapphires valued at $3,900, a crocodile skin belt valued at $395 and a stingray skin belt valued at $500, police said.
Salt in the wounds
A burglar took a crowbar to the side door of Salt, a restaurant at 58 MacDougal St. in Soho on Sat., April 23, but failed to get inside, police said. The door cost $250 to replace. A surveillance camera recorded images of the burglar, police said.
Watch out
A burglar entered a residential building at 505 Broome St. at W. Broadway through an unlocked front door on Sunday night, May 1, broke down the door of an apartment and fled with a Cartier watch valued at $5,000, police said.
Tool theft
Thieves got into a construction site at 22 Mercer St. between Grand and Canal Sts. on Thursday night, April 29, and stole $1,335 worth of tools, mostly drills, after forcing an office door and prying open a tool box, police said. Police did not know how the thieves entered the building, which had scaffolding around it but no doors or windows.
Hudson Sq. site
The construction site of a high-rise residential building at 34 Renwick St. between Canal and Spring Sts. in Hudson Sq. was the target of burglars who broke a glass front door, pried open an inner door and made off with two laptop computers and tools with a total value of $2,300, police said.
Soho break-in
Three burglars broke into the DKNY store at 420 W. Broadway at Spring St. shortly after midnight on Mon., April 25, by tossing a cobblestone through the plate glass front, police said. They made off with a plasma-screen television valued at $17,000. A surveillance camera recorded the images of three men all about 5 feet, 8 inches, one described as a white Hispanic, another described as black man with a dark complexion weighing about 170 pounds and a bald man with a dark complexion also weighing about 170 pounds.
