KIPS BAY — NYPD officers on Wednesday captured a man accused of repeatedly stabbing a Kips Bay tailor in a robbery earlier this week, according to a police report.
John Franklyn, 53, was arrested at 11 p.m. on Wednesday night in connection with a robbery and brutal assault on the 78-year-old owner of Apel’s New Day Tailor, at 203 E. 27th St., which left the owner hospitalized on Monday with multiple stab wounds, according to police.
Franklyn, a resident of the troubled 30th Street Men’s Shelter, is accused of walking into the tailor shop at about 12:40 p.m. on Monday and demanding cash from the owner, who initially refused, police said.
When the owner put up a struggle, Franklyn attacked him, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest and stomach, according to a police report.
The owner eventually forked over about $80, but continued to fight Franklyn and finally forced him out of the store by chasing him down the street brandishing a chair, according to neighbors who saw the aftermath of the attack.
The owner was still being treated at Bellevue Hospital for a punctured lung and a cracked skull as of Thursday afternoon, according to a police spokesman.
Police arrested Franklyn on charges of attempted murder, robbery, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, and he had yet to be arraigned as of Thursday afternoon.
Franklyn is not the first resident of the 30th Street shelter, often referred to as the Bellevue Men’s Shelter, to commit a violent crime in the neighborhood, and residents frequently complain of the shelter’s size — it has more than 800 beds — and impact on the area.
In October, Rodney Stover, a former resident of the shelter, was convicted to 20 years to life in prison for a 2015 rape in which he attacked a woman in the bathroom of Turnmill Bar at 119 E. 27th St. between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue South.
And in April, 53-year-old William Smith slit the throat of his roommate and strangled him to death with a wire before fleeing. Smith was arrested several days later after slashing a cabbie in Queens, and charged with murder.
