COLUMBUS CIRCLE — A thief tried to steal a 66-year-old woman’s reduced-fare MetroCard for seniors as it popped out of the fare machine — and fled with her purse after she struggled with him to get the card back, the NYPD said.
The victim had just refilled her card at the south end of the northbound 1 train platform at the 59th Street-Columbus Circle subway station around 8:10 a.m. on Nov. 9 when a man who looked to be in his 40s grabbed it as it popped out of the machine, police said.
After struggling with the man, the woman managed to get her card back, but the man snatched her purse from her shoulder and fled the station, the NYPD said.
The $350 purse contained $80 in cash, a $150 wallet, $195 Ray Ban sunglasses, $40 glasses, a $40 toiletry bag, the woman’s keys, her debit card and three credit cards, police said.
A Central Park employee later found the woman’s purse on a bench near East 96th Street and Fifth Avenue and gave it to a police officer, the NYPD said.
No one had been arrested in connection with the incident as of Monday.
