A 19-year-old woman knocked to the ground and molested early Saturday in a tony Upper East Side neighborhood near Gracie Mansion was rescued by a nearby doorman, cops said.
The attack came three weeks after a bloody murder-suicide in a custody battle occurred outside in the same neighborhood, according to police.
The assault victim was walking near the corner of East End Ave. and E. 90th St. in Yorkville at about 1:20 a.m., she told police, when a 6-foot-tall man crept up behind her. He was wearing a gray shirt with white stripes and dark-colored pants.
The man knocked her to the ground and molested her.
A doorman working nearby who heard the woman’s cries for help dashed over to the dark tree-lined corner and scared the attacker away, he told the Daily News.
“I just heard the cries, somebody screaming in the middle of the night. It was horrific,” 44-year-old doorman, Hector Mateo said.
The suspect fled when the doorman approached with a flashlight, Mateo’s colleague John, 41, said, adding: “I think he thought it was the police.”
“He came out of the shadows running really fast,” Mateo said. “I tried to chase him, but he had a good lead on me.”
“She was lying on the floor, banged up. There was blood on her shirt,” he said of the victim.
He said he helped the woman to her feet and brought her to his post where they waited for cops to arrive.
She was taken to Weill-Cornell Medical Center for treatment and observation.
“She was in shock and scared and crying,” Mateo said. “I hope that she’s doing well today and that she recovers.”
Mateo, who has a 20-year-old daughter, said he wouldn’t call himself a hero, explaining it was simply his parental instincts taking over.
“I felt like my daughter was calling me at that point,” he said. “If my daughter is going through something like that in distress and somebody’s around and I feel like nobody helped her, I would feel really upset.”
No arrests have been made. Cops were scouring the area Saturday looking for surveillance footage that could help them find the assailant.
The attack took place within three blocks of Mayor Adams’ residence at Gracie Mansion. It wasn’t immediately clear if any of the mayor’s NYPD detail responded to the scene or took part in the search for the perpetrator.
The neighborhood is generally “good” and “quiet,” according to John, who has worked as a doorman on the block for five years. Still, he said he “wouldn’t recommend” walking there late at night.
“I mean, one in the morning, it’s not safe to walk. A 19-year-old girl, it’s not safe to walk,” the doorman said.
In the previous incident on July 26, Kathleen Leigh, a 65-year-old retired probation officer from Chicago fatally shot her grandchild’s mother, Marisa Galloway, on E. 88th St. near York Ave. before turning her gun on herself.
Cops responding to the 8:50 a.m. shooting found a note from Leigh, detailing the older woman’s battle with cancer and suspicions that Galloway was abusing her granddaughter — claims child service workers previously determined were unfounded.
As of Aug. 4, 43 crimes had been reported on the streets surrounding Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion this year. Except for the murder-homicide, none of the crimes was considered violent. This time last year, 44 non-violent crimes had been reported, according to NYPD statistics.
Crime in the 19th Precinct, which covers one of the most densely populated sections of the city from E. 59th St. to E. 96th St. from the East River to Central Park, is down 10% with drops in homicides, robberies and assaults, police said.
Reported rape numbers remained the same at seven, cops said.
