Stabbed on train
A Bronx man was arrested in connection with the stabbing of a woman four months pregnant and her male friend on a crowded northbound C train north of the W. Fourth St. station at 6:15 p.m. Wed. April 19, police said. The woman, 23, and her friend, 22, were treated at St. Vincent’s hospital and both were released the following day. The unborn baby was not harmed,
The suspect, Edward Murphy, 41, of 3340 Gunther Ave., the Bronx, was arrested at the W. 34 St. station and a knife was found on the tracks between the two stations, police said.
The incident began when the suspect accused the woman of staring at him and then punched her in the head. Her companion put his body between them and received two stab wounds in the back. The woman was stabbed in the shoulder, police said.
The couple followed the assailant out of the train at 14th St., and told police he had boarded a northbound A train. Police had the A train held at 34th St. and found Murphy sitting in the last car.
Construction brawl
A brawl erupted between nonunion workers and members of Carpenters Local 608 on Friday morning April 21 at a hotel construction site on W. 26th St. between Sixth and Seventh Aves. and ended with the arrest of five union members.
The incident began shortly before 7 a.m. when the nonunion crew began arriving at 112 W. 26th St. — where a Hampton Inn Hotel is under construction — and a large group of Local 608 pickets were behind a barrier across the street. The shouting turned into a melee in which two officers from the 13th Precinct were assaulted and received minor injuries, police said.
Gerard Gausman, 40, of Queens, was charged with assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and inciting riot. James Noonan, 44, of Pleasantville, N.Y., was charged with assaulting a police officer. Joseph Firth, 41, of Glenn Rock, N.J., John Corrigan, 43, of Hamburg, N.J., and Warren Uihlein, 56, of Centerport, N.Y., were charged with resisting arrest and inciting riot.
Fifth Ave. fire
A fire that broke out at 11:49 p.m. Tues. April 18 caused considerable damage to the two-story vacant building at 61 Fifth Ave. at the corner of E. 13th St., according to a spokesman for the Fire department.
The fire was under control less than a half hour later after 12 units and 65 firefighters responded to the alarm. Cause of the fire is under investigation, a department spokesperson said.
The deli in the building had recently closed. In the 1980s, the building was the home of the blues club Lone Star Cafe and had a giant mockup of an iguana on the roof.
Rained out
A rain-filled construction tarpaulin on the roof of the 10-story Hotel Marcel on Third Ave. and 24th St. gave way at about 1:49 a.m. Sun. April 23 flooding rooms on the floors below and a ground-floor restaurant, a Fire Department spokesperson said. Firefighters evacuated 300 hotel guests.
The tarpaulin was covering the site where a rooftop addition to the building was under construction, according to Ilyse Fink, a Department of Buildings spokesperson. Building inspectors issued several violations, including failure to safeguard a construction site. The flooding also put the hotel’s fire alarms and elevators out of commission.
More water
A broken hydrant branch, which brings water from a 12-inch water main to a curbside fire hydrant, brought Department of Environmental Protection workers to Broadway between 11th and 12th Sts. shortly before 7 a.m. Mon. April 24. The water main was shut from 7:15 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. while the hydrant branch was being replaced.
Bank robber
Police are looking for a man they identified as Ernest Aiken, 39, who passed notes to tellers in three banks and walked off with undisclosed amounts of cash on April 15 and April 21. A Citibank branch on Sixth Ave. and 23rd St. was hit on April 15 and two banks in East Midtown, at 405 Lexington Ave. and 800 Third Ave., were hit in succession on April 21, police said.
Albert Amateau
