Flatiron(ish) Area Shooting

You'd think that being a tourist from Baltimore, you'd be able to get away from shootings, but on Saturday, a woman visiting from Charm City was shot during a botched robbery. A group of men were trying to steal DVDs and CDs from a vendor at 1204 Broadway, around 29th Street, a building full of vendors; Newsday reported that two men argued with the vendor about the movie selection, in order to distract him while others could steal CDs. The vendor called 911, but then the robbers beat him up as the argument moved outside and then they tried shoot him, shooting 25 year-old Sheria Guster of Baltimore instead. Guster had been on a Flatiron shopping tour, and ended up going to St. Vincent's Hospital for her single bullet wound. She was released from the hospital yesterday. While reports say that Guster was alert and even smiled when an ambulance took her, another person on her tour said, "It turned out to be a terrible shopping day," which is a Lennie Briscoe-ism if we ever heard one; thank goodness Guster is all right. At any rate, two men were charged in connection to the crime yesterday, but the police are still awaiting ballistics results.

While Curbed says "20-something" is floating around for that East Side North Gramercy area, Gothamist wonders what one would call that area north of the Flatiron Building. It's sort of strange: south Koreatown, east Garment District, lower Empire/Herald Square.

Photograph from Newsday