Man Bloodied On Yorkville Street In Failed Robbery Attempt

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An Upper East Side man still has his phone, but he did lose some blood.

That's according to a nearby resident who stumbled upon the bloody sight of an attempted robbery, which ended with a pair of teens who punched a 48-year-old man in the face.

"I witnessed the gory aftermath as I came around the corner but heard the entire story from the gentleman himself," wrote neighbor Jocelyn Brandeis in an email she shared with her building and with Patch.

Police said that at about 6:30 p.m., an unknown person approached the victim outside of 172 East 88th St., between Third and Lexington avenues, and demanded the man's cell phone.

When the man refused, the would-be mugger slugged him in the face, leaving him bloodied.

"He was punched several times in the face," Brandeis wrote, adding that there was a visible amount of blood on the sidewalk as well.

But Brandeis also described the neighborhood coming to aid the busted-up man: a nearby barber calling for an ambulance (police only described a bleeding nose) and a bus boy from the nearby Le Pain Quotidien bringing him ice water.

Police officials told Patch that no arrests have been made as of Wednesday morning and that they did not have a description of the suspect to share at the time.