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Woman's Body Found on Upper East Side Street

By Jess Wisloski | December 22, 2012 12:40pm | Updated on December 23, 2012 2:15pm
 A Madison Avenue sidewalk, where a woman's body was discovered early Saturday morning, Dec. 22, 2012.
A Madison Avenue sidewalk, where a woman's body was discovered early Saturday morning, Dec. 22, 2012.
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DNAinfo/Jesse Lent

UPPER EAST SIDE — A woman's body was discovered on an Upper East Side sidewalk early Saturday morning in the Lenox Hill section of Manhatta, police said.

Police responding to a 911 call found the 54-year-old woman lying unconscious and unresponsive on the edge of Madison Avenue and the sidewalk, between East 72nd and 73rd streets at 6:20 a.m.

The victim was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, where she was determined to be dead on arrival, police said. Police later said it was a suspected suicide.

On Sunday, some publications reported she was the co-owner of an art gallery at the location, Marijana Bego.

Jose Samuels, 49, from Queens, who is unemployed but panhandles in front of a church at 921 Madison Ave., said the woman was splayed across the ground when he saw her early in the morning.

"She wasn't on the sidewalk," he said, gesturing to an area cordoned off by police. "She was spread out over the curb."

He said reported the body, he said, to an officer outside the Times Square precinct.

A medical examiner will determine her cause of death, and a police investigation is ongoing, an NYPD spokesperson said. The woman's identity was not immediately released, pending familiy notification, and police would not confirm reports on her identity.