UPPER WEST SIDE — A small antique store on Amsterdam Avenue was robbed Monday afternoon by a teenager disguised as a construction worker, according to police.
The stickup began at about 2:30 p.m. when the suspect, who has been identified as Israel Mincy, 17, was buzzed through the security door at More and More Antiques on Amsterdam Avenue at West 78th Street, cops and witnesses said.
Mincy, who is being charged with a felony, was wearing a grey safety helmet and orange safety vest, cops said.
"He displayed a silver handgun and demanded the jewelry in the case," an NYPD spokesman said.
The employee behind the counter handed over more than $50,000 in jewels, according to the DA's office.
The suspect then fled on foot towards Riverside Drive, cops said.
Mincy was chased by an employee of the store followed him for blocks until he dropped the jewelry and a bag that had his name inside, the New York Post reported.
The stolen jewelry was "recovered from the ground where a second individual known to the District Attorney's office observed the defendant drop it," according to the DA's criminal complaint.
Around the time of the robbery, doorman Patrick Sheridan watched a heavy set man wearing a t-shirt chase a thinner, shorter man wearing a "construction hat," along West 78th Street, he said.
"The guy chasing [the perpetrator] said 'stop or I'll shoot,'" he said.
The two men made a right onto Broadway, the doorman said.
Less than five minutes later two police cars and a police scooter came tearing the wrong way down West 78th Street, a one-way eastbound street, he said.
"I haven't seen anything like that in 16 years," said Sheridan.
The owners of the antique store declined to comment.
There is an active construction site two doors south of More and More Antiques, along Amsterdam Avenue, where men in construction safety helmets were seen Monday afternoon.
