Driver Charged After Deadly Gramercy Crash on Third Avenue
At about 7:28 p.m. on June 4, 2023, police said Mahbub Ali drunkenly drove a Hyundai sedan into people at Third Avenue and East 21st Street, where the city recorded one bicyclist killed and four people injured.
What We Know
Mahbub Ali, 26, was charged after the June 4 Gramercy crash at Third Avenue and East 21st Street. The city crash record logged a 7:28 p.m. collision involving a northbound sedan, a parked SUV and two e-bikes; it recorded one 23-year-old male bicyclist killed and four other people injured, with alcohol involvement and unsafe speed tied to the sedan driver. Police reports cited by the Daily News and Post said Ali drove a Hyundai Sonata uptown, hit a man in the marked crosswalk, then hit an e-bike rider and two pedestrians before hitting a parked unoccupied van. AMNY later cited prosecutors saying the dead victim, Abdulhekim Esiyok, was riding a bicycle; other articles described him as crossing Third Avenue. A grand jury indicted Ali on aggravated vehicular homicide, manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and DWI counts.
The crash in the intersection
The city record places the crash at 7:28 p.m. on Sunday, June 4, 2023, at 3 Avenue and East 21 Street in Manhattan. It records one person killed and four injured: two pedestrians, one cyclist and one motorist injured, and one bicyclist killed.
Police accounts published by the Daily News and the Post identified Mahbub Ali, 26, as the driver of a Hyundai Sonata traveling north on Third Avenue. Those accounts said Ali hit a man in a marked crosswalk, then hit an e-bike rider and two other pedestrians before hitting a parked unoccupied van. The city crash record lists a sedan, a parked SUV and two e-bikes involved.
Abdulhekim Esiyok's death and the injured survivors
The city record lists the person killed as a 23-year-old male bicyclist. The Post identified him as Abdulhekim Esiyok, a Turkish worker who had been in New York only a few months. AMNY, citing prosecutors, reported his age as 22 and said he was riding a bicycle; the Daily News and Post police accounts described him as a man crossing Third Avenue in a marked crosswalk.
The Post reported that Esiyok came from Agri in eastern Turkey and had been searching for work in New York. Friends said he hoped to send earnings back to his family, and that a fundraising campaign helped cover the cost of returning his body to Turkey for burial.
Police accounts said the injured included an 18-year-old e-bike rider, a 21-year-old male pedestrian, a 26-year-old female pedestrian and a 25-year-old female passenger in Ali's sedan. The city record also counts four injured people: two pedestrians, one cyclist and one motorist.
A deadly crash on a heavily harmed Third Avenue corridor
The crash happened at 3rd Avenue and East 21st Street in Gramercy, Manhattan, along the 3rd Avenue corridor.
CrashCountNYC's corridor view counted 2,262 crashes, 1,314 injuries, 109 serious injuries and 10 deaths on 3rd Avenue in Manhattan from 2022 through June 1, 2026, placing this fatal crash within a corridor with a long record of harm.
Alcohol, speed and charges
The city crash record lists alcohol involvement for the crash. In the sedan driver record, it lists alcohol involvement and unsafe speed. Police said Ali faced vehicular manslaughter, DWI and assault charges after the crash.
AMNY reported on Aug. 10 that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced a grand jury indictment charging Ali with aggravated vehicular homicide, second-degree manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and driving while intoxicated counts. The article said prosecutors alleged Ali had been drinking since around noon before driving that evening.
Witnesses described screaming and street triage
A doorman who worked near the scene told the Daily News that the sound of the crash was like an explosion and that people were screaming afterward. Another nearby resident told the paper that people on the ground were being triaged almost immediately, with pieces of a bike and sedan scattered around the scene.
Medics took the injured survivors to Bellevue Hospital, according to the police accounts published by the Daily News and the Post.