{"id":7164,"date":"2025-10-18T01:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T01:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/7164\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T01:00:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T01:00:14","slug":"upper-west-side-firebug-torches-trash-cans-cars-in-fiery-spree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/7164\/","title":{"rendered":"Upper West Side firebug torches trash cans, cars in fiery spree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2024\/11\/19\/queens-arson-plea-deal-evan-person-15-years-south-ozone-park-fire\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">firebug<\/a> ran around the Upper West Side on Friday morning, setting fire to garbage cans and torching two parked cars, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The first blaze was set at about 3:30 a.m. near the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnh.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">American Museum of Natural History<\/a> on W. 77th St. near Columbus Ave., where a white man wearing a hooded long coat, blue jeans and a blue backpack was seen setting fire to a garbage can.<\/p>\n<p>That fire quickly spread to two parked cars nearby, damaging both vehicles, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The arsonist resurfaced about 40 minutes later and five blocks away on W. 82nd St. near Columbus Ave.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"An Arsonist is being sought after he set multiple fires, including one that burnt two parked and unoccupied cars, a Lexus LS430 and a Mini Cooper, at 40 West 77th Street in Manhattan on Friday Oct. 17, 2025. 0819. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)\" width=\"9504\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/TNY-P30-20251017-082659.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"8560321\" \/>An arsonist is being sought after he set multiple fires, including one that burnt two parked and unoccupied cars, a Lexus LS430 and a Mini Cooper, at 40 West 77th St. in Manhattan on Friday. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n<p>The same man set fire to a garbage can outside a home on W. 82nd St., damaging it.<\/p>\n<p>No injuries were reported in either incident.<\/p>\n<p>The arsonist ran off on foot. No arrests have been made.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, a daring mugger held up a 57-year-old woman at gunpoint at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mta.info\/maps\/subway-line-maps\/b-line\" data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/www.mta.info\/maps\/subway-line-maps\/b-line\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">86th St. subway stop for B and C trains<\/a> at Central Park West, a few blocks further north from where the fires were set.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"An Arsonist is being sought after he set multiple fires, including one that burnt two parked and unoccupied cars, a Lexus LS430 and a Mini Cooper, at 40 West 77th Street in Manhattan on Friday Oct. 17, 2025. 0819. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)\" width=\"9504\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/TNY-P24-20251017-082605.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"8560308\" \/>An arsonist is being sought after he set multiple fires, including one that burnt two parked and unoccupied cars, a Lexus LS430 and a Mini Cooper, at 40 West 77th St. in Manhattan on Friday. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is real,\u201d the armed mugger seethed as he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2025\/10\/16\/woman-robbed-gunpoint-upper-west-side-subway-station-broad-daylight\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pressed the gun to the woman\u2019s head<\/a> and robbed her of her bag, which contained her iPhone, wallet and some credit cards.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone with information regarding these incidents is urged to call <a href=\"https:\/\/crimestoppers.nypdonline.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NYPD Crime Stoppers<\/a> at (800) 577-TIPS.<\/p>\n<p>Originally Published: October 17, 2025 at 11:16 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A firebug ran around the Upper West Side on Friday morning, setting fire to garbage cans and torching&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,75,84,83,9,24,264,12,63,261,265],"class_list":["post-7164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}