Punk rocker struck, killed by SUV in East Village: cops

A 47-year-old punk rock guitarist died at dawn Thursday after being struck by an SUV while crossing the street near her East Village apartment.

“She was a loving, upbeat, and interesting person,” the distraught boyfriend of Lisa Julian said at Beth Israel Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

“She was very happy. It’s tough to talk about her right now,” said the boyfriend, Alexander Rubinstein, 21.

No criminality is suspected, though the accident remains under investigation, cops said.

Julian was crossing the street at Third Avenue and St. Mark’s Place when a white Ford Explorer hit her at around 6:30 a.m., according to police.

NYPD investigates at the scene of the accident in the East Village.Seth Gottfried

“She was walking. I don’t think she was paying attention,” the vehicle’s stunned driver, Oliver Parris, 58, said as he lingered at the scene after talking to police.

Parris delivers newspapers to apartments for a living, and had just finished for the day. He was driving home to Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, when he struck Julian.

“She was crossing against the light. I had a green light,” he said sadly.

“I tried to avoid her. I swerved.”

Parris’ SUV was traveling southbound near Cooper Square as Julian was attempting to cross Third Avenue from west to east, cops said.

A witness who works nearby described seeing Julian unconscious and unresponsive as emergency responders arrived.

“She looked like she was dead. It’s sad, it’s horrible,” said the witness, Andrea Torres, 30.

Julian was originally from North Conway, NH, and had been living in New York for “years,” said her boyfriend.

He said he had fond memories of a trip to a cabin in Maine that they’d taken last January.

“It was cold, 7 below. We just had each other. We watched movies and wrote poetry,” he said wistfully. “That was great.”