A newsstand vendor was robbed twice in recent months — including once by a pair of crooks who pistol-whipped him — after he set up shop on the Upper West Side in a bid to escape crime.
Shah Hossain, 46, said he remains shaken by a brazen broad-daylight robbery Monday in which two gun-toting bandits clobbered him to the ground and snatched $3,000 from his newsstand along Columbus Avenue and West 81st Street.
He suspects the bandits were the same duo who robbed him back in the spring.
“I am watching people from all sides now,” he told The Post on Wednesday.
The heinous heist was both insult and injury for Hossein, who set up a newsstand along the quiet block near the American Museum of Natural History more than a year ago after growing tired of constant thievery at his old One World Trade Center location.
“I moved here because I think it would be better,” he said. “I think it’s a good area. Everybody says so.”
But the peace was shattered May 21, when two men held up the newsstand robbed Hossain of $2,900.
Hossain believes the same pair returned Aug. 26 at around 1 p.m., making off with even more cash and leaving him roughed up physically and mentally.
He said two men bum rushed him through the stand’s side door as he waited with a stack of cash to pay for delivery that would restock his shelves of candy, soda and other items.
One man put a gun to Hossain’s head and clobbered him to the ground, while the other threatened him with a knife, the worker told The Post.
“The one with the gun said, ‘Don’t move,’” Hossain recalled. “I don’t want to move. The one with the knife took the money and then they ran away.”
The brigands ran off with $3,000 in cash, Hossain said.
The broad daylight stickup Monday also rattled many locals in the well-to-do area.
“It’s shocking, it’s terrible. Somebody points a gun at you? Maybe it’s too easy to get a gun,” said Nancy, a neighborhood resident for more than 20 years who didn’t want to give her full name.
Nancy said the neighborhood has changed since the pandemic.
“It’s largely safe, but I’ve seen mentally and emotionally ill people on the streets behaving in a menacing way,” she said. “I constantly survey who’s around me and if I do not feel safe, I cross the street or go into a coffee shop.”
Hossain said in spite of being robbed twice in a matter of months that he’s not moving.
“I’m staying in the area,” he said.
