Woman Groped in Burlington Coat Factory on Sixth Ave.

Shopping on one of Manhattan’s great retail thoroughfares—and 6th Avenue in Chelsea certainly is one of them—should always be pleasure.

But on the busy shopping day of Sunday Jan. 19 at approximately 8:20 p.m., an unidentified individual approached a twenty-two year old female victim from behind and “touched her buttocks.”

The groper then fled on foot to the proverbial parts unknown. There were no reported physical injuries but the incident is being investigated by the Manhattan Special Victims Squad.

While the fuzzy quality of the surveillance photo released by NYPD makes description of the suspect speculative, a preponderance of evidence suggests the individual is a female dressed in a black and yellow horizontal striped hood or hat; thick-framed eyeglasses of a metallic color; a gold shirt or ascot; a dark blue insulated winter coat with a hood; dark pants; and a medium sized purse or other carry bag. The individual’s shoes look like bone-colored Crocs or similar footwear.

Originally opened in 1889 as the Ehrich Brothers department store, since the 1990s the address at 707 Avenue of the Americas between 22nd and 23rd Streets has been the Chelsea home of Burlington Coat Factory.

It is still widely known as Sixth Ave. Nobody called it Avenue of the Americas until October 1945, when, in a fit of post-World War II-inspired global optimism, 6th Ave. was officially renamed at the urging of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. For awhile the signs saying Sixth Ave. were removed but after 30 years or so, the city in its wisdom put back signs designating it as Sixth Ave., along with its new name.

The 6th Avenue El—also known as the IRT Sixth Avenue Line—had closed in December 1938, and once the elevated was taken down, the newly light filled avenue, became a shopping Mecca which included the resplendent “Ladies Mile” from 15th to 24th streets, was bursting with possibility. Or so LaGuardia—who was born in Greenwich Village and lived at 177 Sullivan Street as a boy—hoped. Out with utilitarian Sixth Avenue, in with the aspirational “Avenue of the Americas.”

But not so fast, cowboy.

Despite its official imprimatur, the renaming was a popular bust and remains so today. Though maps and the post office recognize it, almost nobody says “Yeah, I was walking up Avenue of the Americas the other day when the funniest thing happened—”

To give another example, for all his great accomplishments, how many New Yorkers can tell you where Frederick Douglass Boulevard is, besides broadly “up in Harlem”? Well, it’s really Eighth Avenue—everyone knows where that is. While 6th Avenue above Central Park was renamed Lenox Avenue in 1887, because uptown was sparsely settled then, the name stuck.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X @NYPDTips.

Calls are strictly confidential.