UPPER WEST SIDE — The family of a college student who disappeared in Inwood last month is offering a $5,000 reward for information about his whereabouts.
Anthony Ureña, 23, a former Inwood resident who lives in the Upper West Side's Douglass Houses, was last seen on Saturday, Nov. 14, leaving the lounge Cliff at 440 W. 202nd St., police said.
His relatives have publicly pleaded for help in finding the Lehman College student, including hitting the streets with police and Uptown residents earlier this month in search of Ureña.
“I just want him home,” his mother Judith Lopez told a crowd that gathered in front of the Upper West Side's 24th Precinct on Monday night after a meeting with officers there. “We’re offering a $5,000 reward for any information.”
She also said that the family viewed surveillance video they received from an Inwood business showing Ureña on the street around the time he disappeared ordering from a food truck. However, police didn't find anything suspicious about it in the footage, his brother Christopher Ureña said.
The investigation is ongoing, the NYPD said.
On Dec. 4, dozens of police officers met with Ureña's family near where he was last spotted in Inwood and distributed fliers, while the NYPD’s Harbor and Aviation units combed the Harlem River shoreline.
Lopez said she started a GoFundMe campaign last week in the hopes of hiring a private investigator to help with her son’s case, but decided to use some of the money to offer the $5,000 reward. As of Tuesday, the campaign had raised $14,425 of its $15,000 goal in just three days.
Ureña was seen wearing a green leather jacket, a blue baseball cap, black Timberland boots and black jeans when he went missing, police said.
"If anyone knows anything," Lopez said in Spanish outside the precinct Monday, "The best gift will be that he returns."
The NYPD is asking anyone with information regarding Ureña's disappearance to contact Det. Rodolfo Bisono at 212-678-1863 or the Detective Borough Manhattan North at 212-477-7447.
