A Harlem teacher has mysteriously disappeared – leaving behind her keys, wallet and ID – just days before the first day of school.
Hannah Upp, 23, a beautiful Bryn Mawr College graduate and a teaching fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Academy, has not been seen since Friday, according to worried friends and family who said she was eagerly awaiting the start of the new school year.
Upp’s roommates in a prewar building on Hamilton Terrace told cops she was planning to go away for the weekend.
But by Monday evening, when they did not hear from her, they looked in her room. Inside were her keys, phone, and handbag containing her wallet with ATM card and identification.
“Our deepest, deepest prayer is that she’s safe, and we’re trying to get as many ears and eyes out there looking for her,” said Upp’s mother, Barbara Bellus, who was keeping vigil in the apartment.
After learning about Upp’s disappearance, several of her Bryn Mawr classmates traveled to New York to join the hunt.
They posted fliers throughout Times Square, where cops said she last used her ATM card at a movie theater a week ago.
“We’re all too connected for her to just disappear,” said Abbey Mann, a former classmate.
Upp, the daughter of two United Methodist ministers, grew up in Salem, Ore., before graduating from the Pennsylvania school in 2007.
She is currently teaching Spanish at Thurgood Marshall in the city’s University Fellows program, as part of graduate studies at Pace University.
Although she had a few rocky moments during her first year of teaching, colleagues said she was looking forward to going back to the Marshall Academy.
Sandye Johnson, principal of the school on West 135th Street, said, “She didn’t look troubled. She was happy. She had a glow on her face.”
Friends said the glow is a permanent fixture.
“We used to say she was in Hannah Land because she believed the world is beautiful and everything in it is good,” said her friend, Piyali Bhattacharya.
Sources said police have found no evidence that Upp was the victim of a crime.