Investigators said two men were found wounded before sunrise and the suspected attacker escaped south on Ninth Avenue.
NEW YORK — A predawn stabbing outside a Hell’s Kitchen shelter left one man dead and another injured Thursday, sending detectives through surveillance footage and witness accounts as they searched for a man who fled the scene on a bicycle.
The attack unfolded outside Urban Pathways on Ninth Avenue, a nonprofit site that serves homeless New Yorkers, turning a routine early morning on a busy Midtown West block into an active crime scene. Police said the motive was still under investigation, and several basic facts remained unsettled, including whether the men involved were staying at or using services from the center.
According to police, officers were called just after 4:45 a.m. to the block near West 52nd Street. They found two men, both believed to be in their 30s, suffering from multiple stab wounds. One had injuries to the torso and later died at Bellevue Hospital. The other, identified by police only as a 34-year-old man, had wounds to the abdomen and was reported in stable condition. The stabbings happened outside the Urban Pathways 9th Avenue Drop-In Center, a place known for around-the-clock services for people in need of shelter and support.
Investigators quickly focused on a man who left the area by bicycle. Police said he was last seen wearing a blue jacket and blue pants and riding south on Ninth Avenue. Video from a nearby deli appeared to show several men close to bicycles shortly before the violence. Early information suggested there may have been an argument over a bike, though authorities had not said exactly who owned it, who first touched it or what turned the dispute deadly. That uncertainty left key parts of the case unresolved even as the broad outline of the attack became clearer.
For neighbors and workers in Hell’s Kitchen, the stabbing landed hard because it happened at the edge of a service site and in a corridor that stays active from early morning into late night. Ninth Avenue is one of the neighborhood’s busiest north-south routes, carrying delivery traffic, cyclists, residents and people heading to jobs before sunrise. The block around West 52nd Street mixes residential buildings, small businesses and social service operations, making it the kind of place where a violent crime can quickly unsettle several communities at once. The attack also raised immediate questions about safety for shelter clients, staff and nearby merchants, even though investigators had not yet described the confrontation as random.
Police were expected to lean heavily on camera footage from businesses along the avenue and on interviews with the wounded survivor and anyone else who saw the men in the minutes before the attack. Investigators also needed to identify the man who died and notify relatives before releasing his name publicly. No charges had been filed Thursday, no arrest had been announced and police had not publicly said whether they had recovered the knife or any other weapon. The surviving victim’s account could become crucial in establishing whether the men knew one another and whether the dispute started at the shelter entrance or somewhere nearby.
As the morning wore on, the scene reflected both urgency and routine. Officers guarded the taped-off stretch of sidewalk while pedestrians moved around the block and traffic continued down Ninth Avenue. Workers glanced toward the shelter entrance, and cyclists passed through the same corridor where detectives believed the suspect had escaped hours earlier. The starkness of that contrast — a homicide investigation unfolding in a neighborhood already awake and moving — underscored how quickly an ordinary sidewalk dispute can become a fatal case.
By Thursday afternoon, police were still searching for the cyclist seen leaving the area, the second victim remained in stable condition and investigators had not announced a motive. The next milestone was whether detectives could identify the suspect from video and witness interviews.
Author note: Last updated April 23, 2026.