Robberies have jumped almost 10 percent this year on the Upper East Side — where a crazed woman carrying bicycle chains terrorized three people in a 10-minute span.
Through Sunday, there had been 58 robberies in the 19th Precinct, compared with 53 last year, NYPD crime statistics show. That’s a hike of 9.4 percent.
The precinct covers East 59th Street to East 96th Street from Fifth Avenue to the East River and is one of the densest areas in the Big Apple, with more than 217,000 people.
“It’s going to get worse, which is why I’m moving out,” said John Roh, 43. “With the economy, it’s going to get worse. I remember the ’80s, and it’s going to be like that.”
Residents were shocked to learn that Christina Andujar, 23, a woman described as having the build of a wrestler, allegedly went on a theft spree Tuesday night, targeting three victims in 10 minutes.
First, she stole an iPhone from Dr. Peter Schlossberg, 55, who was eating at the bar of the posh Demarchelier restaurant on East 86th Street at Madison Avenue, police sources and the victim said.
When he noticed the phone missing and followed her out to demand it back, she coughed it up, but punched him in the face when he tried to hold her for cops, police said.
“I felt good that I was stopping her,” Schlossberg said. “She didn’t look like the type of person from the neighborhood. She had baggy shorts on, tattoos on her legs. She didn’t fit into the atmosphere.”
Andujar, wearing bicycle chains around her neck, fled on a bike, allegedly confronting Georgeanne Jaffe, 64, and Carmelita Mametis a few minutes later.
She threatened to hit them with the chains unless they handed over their purses, but they ran away, police said. Cops arrived and busted Andujar on robbery charges.
Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the NYPD, said, “There was a quick arrest in one of the city’s safest precincts. Robberies in the 19th precinct despite an increase of six incidents are down 32 percent since the current administration took office in 2002. It remains one of the city’s safest precincts with no murders and an overall crime decrease of 14 percent year to date and down 49 percent compared to 2001.”