Subway assault victim says no one helped her
NEW YORK - Nadine Hartstein was trying to get off a No. 6 subway train at the Union Square station at about 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday when someone attacked her.
"I was clearly someone older who was beaten by a madman," she said. "A man came in very aggressively and chest bumped me and then punched me square in the face and hit me in the eye — the temple, as you can see, broke my glasses and punched me down."
Hartstein said she couldn't see.
"He broke the frame of my glasses, which threw the lens out," she said. "The lens fell out across the subway floor."
And as she scrambled to find her glasses, she asked someone to call 911.
"Nobody helped me," Hartstein said. "Nobody even looked up from their phone."
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Hartstein said her attacker was clearly unstable.
"He told me that he had to do it, that I made him do it," she said. "He just yelled, 'I didn't mean to punch you in the face' and then he was gone, and I begged people to call the cops."
Hartstein has lived in the city for more than 45 years. She is currently a real estate broker and a former actress who says she was once Madonna's double in a music video.
She said she experienced crime in the past — she was mugged in the 1970s. But this attack is more disappointing because no one helped her, she said.
"I understand they were scared — they didn't want to get involved," Hartstein said. "But you have to get involved."
Hartstein filed a police report.
The NYPD is investigating.