Stabbing at Straus Park; Teen Busted for Gun near Douglass Houses
Kicking, stabbing, and just plain possession.
| 30 Jun 2025 | 11:49
Left: Straus Park in placid times. Right: Douglass Houses at Columbus Avenue and West 103rd Street. (
)
Straus Park is many things to many people. Filling the almost triangular space between West End Avenue and Broadway, and West 106th and 107th streets, it’s a jewel of park that summons strong affections well beyond what its modest size might suggest.
Best known for its memorial statue honoring Isidor and Ida Straus—he was the Macy’s co-owner and congressman, she his spouse, who on April 12, 1912, died together on the Titanic—the park was the site of a lesser calamity on Friday, June 18.
At around 9pm, according to police, a man, 22, and a woman, 21, were being harassed near Straus Park, after which a “physical altercation ensued,” with the woman being kicked, and man stabbed multiple times.
While the attacker fled on foot, the victims were taken to Mount Sinai Morningside hospital in stable condition.
A short time later, cops arrested Asher Zwarenstein, 32, of Morningside Heights, for the vicious, and at present unexplained, first-degree felony assault.
According to Department of Correction records, Zwarenstein is a white male, 5-foot-9, 175 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
At press time, Zwarenstein is being held at Rikers Island on $50,000 bail, or $150,000 secured bond.
His next scheduled court date is July 23.
15-year-old Boy Arrested on Gun Charges near Douglass Houses
Pursuant to an ongoing investigation, an Upper West Side teenager was arrested and charged on June 18, within the confines of the 24th Precinct, at Columbus Avenue and West 103rd Street.
Because of the suspect’s age, 15, cops and prosecutors aren’t saying much more than the charges, which are criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and the fourth degree.
As has been reported in numerous news outlets, New York State’s Raise the Age law, which went into effect in 2019 and increased the age of adult criminal responsibility to 18 instead of 16, seems to have unfortunately emboldened teenage gunmen.
The punishment assigned to teenagers for gun possession and even shootings can be relatively slight, and teen gun violence has soared, especially in the Bronx, parts of Brooklyn, and, as here, in certain sections of Upper Manhattan.
The intersection where this bust occurred was within the confines of Frederick Douglass Houses, a NYCHA project that contains 17 buildings, more than 2,000 apartments, and nearly 5,000 residents.