Roosevelt Island Woman Robbed Of Iphone And Beaten May 22 Afternoon At Roosevelt Island F Train Subway Station - Another Iphone Robbery From Roosevelt Island Bus May 19 Afternoon

A Tipster reported yesterday:

5 kids arrested on Monday at or by the train/tram. They are from off island but apparently they beat and robbed a young woman who lives here.

Also last Friday there was a report of 2 kids robbing a woman on the island for her phone. I am not sure if those 2 kids from Friday and the 5 kids from Monday are connected. But I feel like no one knows about it and we should.

Fridays incident happened on the bus. I am not sure if its the red bus or the 102, but the kids ran into the train.

According to a NYPD Spokesperson, on Monday, May 22, at approximately 2:30 in the afternoon, 5 teenagers between 13- 17 years of age approached a 28 year old woman standing at the Roosevelt Island F Train Station Manhattan Bound platform. The Queens teenagers, 4 female and 1 male, surrounded the Roosevelt Island woman, robbed her of an Iphone and roughed her up causing bruising and lacerations.

According to Roosevelt Island Public Safety Department (PSD) Director Jack McManus, following the incident, the woman canvassed the area with Public Safety Officers and spotted the teenagers at the Tram Station where they were arrested by PSD.

 NYPD & PSD At Tram Station May 22

Chief McManus and Deputy Chief Kevin Butler also reported a previous incident of a stolen Iphone occurring after school on Friday afternoon, May 19. According to Deputy Chief Butler, 2 kids, 12 years of age or younger, robbed an Iphone from a bus passenger and escaped into the Roosevelt Island F Train subway station. They were not caught. PSD is not sure if the robbery occurred on a Red Bus or NYC Q102 Bus.

Chief McManus says the two incidents are not related and not part of any organized gang. They were opportunistic crimes he said.

Chief McManus discussed these two incidents at the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Public Safety Committee meeting last night.

Here's the discussion.

Pokemon Go Mobile Phone App Species Spotted At Roosevelt Island Historical Society Visitors Center Kiosk Today - Did You Catch Magenta?

Roosevelt Island Historical Society (RIHS) President Judy Berdy reports that a Pokemon Go species

was spotted at the RIHS Visitors Center Kiosk today.

Here's more on the Pokemon Go craze



and species caught

I wasn't first exited about Pokemon Go. But now I sure as hell am! I caught these all on Roosevelt island! #Pokemon pic.twitter.com/yRLf8jOGMN

— Melon Lord (@Melon_Lord88) July 7, 2016

on Roosevelt Island.

Pokemon Go Mobile Phone App Species Discovered On Roosevelt Island - Catch One Or More Yourself

Roosevelt Island is often the site of television programs and films.

Always at the forefront of technology, Roosevelt Island has now entered the virtual world with the newly released Pokemon Go mobile phone app.

The Twitterverse reports:

I wasn't first exited about Pokemon Go. But now I sure as hell am! I caught these all on Roosevelt island! #Pokemon pic.twitter.com/yRLf8jOGMN

— Melon Lord (@Melon_Lord88) July 7, 2016

What is this virtual world?

According to Pokemon web site:

Travel between the real world and the virtual world of Pokémon with Pokémon GO for iPhone and Android devices. With Pokémon GO, you’ll discover Pokémon in a whole new world—your own! Pokémon GO is built on Niantic’s Real World Gaming Platform and will use real locations to encourage players to search far and wide in the real world to discover Pokémon. Pokémon GO allows you to find and catch more than a hundred species of Pokémon as you explore your surroundings.

The Pokémon video game series has used real-world locations such as the Hokkaido and Kanto regions of Japan, New York, and Paris as inspiration for the fantasy settings in which its games take place. In Pokémon GO, the real world will be the setting!

Get on your feet and step outside to find and catch wild Pokémon. Explore cities and towns around where you live and even around the globe to capture as many Pokémon as you can. As you move around, your smartphone will vibrate to let you know you're near a Pokémon. Once you've encountered a Pokémon, take aim on your smartphone's touch screen and throw a Poké Ball to catch it. Be careful when you try to catch it, or it might run away! Also look for PokéStops located at interesting places, such as public art installations, historical markers, and monuments, where you can collect more Poké Balls and other items....

With Cornell Tech campus opening next summer, we may see Roosevelt Island pop up more in future mobile phone apps.

Blackberry Stolen & Another Attempted Theft Of Roosevelt Island Iphone Near Subway

Image of Blackberry Phone From Slipperbrick

Commenting on yesterday's post about a Roosevelt Island Good Samaritan who chased after two thieves attempting to rob a woman of her cell phone by the Subway Station at 9:35 PM on April 6, a reader wrote:

I think these people tried to steal my phone as well. Yesterday as I was walking home from the subway 3 boys tried to rip my phone out of my hand. Luckily they didn't succeed and once I started screaming they left me alone. Hopefully they catch who did this.

The Roosevelt Island Public Safety Report for 4/7 - 4/8 provides some additional information:

Attempted Robbery- Three males approached a female and attempted to take the cell phone from her hand. Female screamed and subjects fled. PSD responded and conducted a search with negative results. NYPD refused. No injuries.

Unfortunately, this Blackberry owner was not so lucky:

Grand Larceny- Male youth took a blackberry from a female and fled. PSD responded and conducted a search with negative results. No injuries. EMS refused. NYPD refused.

Roosevelt Island Public Safety Department Chief Keith Guerra indicated yesterday that:

Our Ant-Crime Officers are looking further into the matter.

Stay Alert!

UPDATE 12:45 PM - Mr. Guerra adds the following information regarding yesterday's incidents:

At 4:04 PM, there was an attempted robbery of an I-phone by the west seawall. Thankfully, the victim was not injured and did not lose her phone, as she screamed loudly, and the unknown male subject fled southbound.

At 9:40 PM, an unknown male snatched a blackberry out of a woman's hand by the meditation steps and fled northbound.

Neither victim could give a full description of the male involved, but in both incidents, the male subject was described as African-American.

While neither victim did anything wrong, we do ask that everyone be aware of their surroundings while using their phones.

Roosevelt Island Good Samaritan Helps Another Resident Retrieve Stolen Iphone - Good Job!

Iphone Thief Image From Maximum PC

The 4/6 - 4/ 7 Roosevelt Island Daily Public Safety Report included this incident:

Robbery- Two male subjects forcible took an I phone from a female in the street. Witness ran after them. The cell phone was thrown on the ground. The witness returned the phone to the owner. PSD responded and conducted a search for the subjects with negative results. PSD crime unit to file a police report.

Roosevelt Island Public Safety Department Chief Keith Guerra provides some additional details:

The Good Samaritan was a male who witnessed the I-phone being snatched out of the woman's hand. When he yelled and started chasing the subject, the I-phone was immediately dropped to the side by the fleeing subject. The Good Samaritan picked it up and returned it to the woman - who suffered no injuries. Our Ant-Crime Officers are looking further into the matter.

Mr. Guerra adds the incident occurred:

Yesterday, April 6th at approximately 9:35PM in front of 400 Main St. (Train Station).

3G Apple iPhone Available For Sale On Friday

For those of you who care, and I am certainly one of them, Apple's new 3G iPhone will go on sale this Friday at Apple retail stores. How will the process work? According to Bloomberg News, Apple:

... will start selling its new iPhone at 8 a.m. nationwide on July 11 and plans to activate U.S. customer accounts with AT&T Inc. within 15 minutes.

``Our expectation is that in 10 to 15 minutes, you'll be set up and ready to go,'' Ron Johnson, Apple's retail chief, said today in an interview. Apple's more than 185 retail stores in the U.S. each aim to handle about 100 customers an hour, he said.

Here's WSJ's Walt Mossberg bottom line review:

If you've been waiting to buy an iPhone until it dropped in price, or ran on faster cell networks, you might want to take the plunge, if you can live with the higher service costs and the weaker battery life. The same goes for those with existing iPhones who love the device but crave faster cellular data speeds. But if you already own an iPhone, and can usually use Wi-Fi for data, you probably should hold off and get the free software upgrade before deciding whether it's worth getting the new hardware.

And a 38 minute Apple 3G iPhone guided video tour on You Tube. Also, NY Times Bits review of the iPhone reviews.

My primary concern with the iPhone has been the perceived inferior area coverage of the AT&T service and this from Mossberg's review does not help:

But I still found that calls regularly broke up on some major streets. In New York City, riding in a taxi along the Hudson, one important call was dropped three times on the new iPhone. Finally, I borrowed a cheap Verizon phone and got perfect reception.

But I am looking forward to many new innovative and useful third party applications.

If things go as Apple hopes, third-party software could be the biggest attraction to the new iPhone 3G, and to upgraded older iPhones. By some estimates, there will be hundreds of these programs, some free and some paid, almost immediately.

My bottom line on the iPhone. I am going to wait at least until next month when my current Verizon Wireless cell plan expires. By that time I hope most of the kinks are worked out of the iPhone and 3rd party applications. Then I will buy it.

UPDATE: 7/10 - AT&T is getting ready for the big Apple iPhone 3G day. According to Forbes:

Since many customers are likely to be first-time AT&T subscribers or new to the iPhone, AT&T is trying to educate consumers ahead of the launch. It has posted answers to frequently asked questions, such as whether the phone can be used internationally. It also produced three how-to videos that describe, for instance, how customers who already own iPhones can give their old phones to friends and family if they buy a new one

UPDATE - 4/23/09 - I have had my IPhone since last September and am very pleased with it. Also, the AT&T service has improved greatly over the last few months so that it works just fine on Roosevelt Island and the rest of New York City in my experience.

News Links

Better Apple 3G IPhones on the Way. (Forbes)
Louis Kahn Fine Art Exhibition. (Art Daily)
12 year old Roosevelt Island Girl Missing. (NY Post)
New 2nd Avenue Deli Review - Pastrami and Matzo Ball Soup (NY Times)
Happy Birthday Charles Darwin, Dover still not Over. (Wired)