A gutsy 87-year-old man fought off a brazen pair who tried to rip off his $48,000 Rolex outside a Gramercy Park senior center he was attending with his wife, according to cops and the victims.
Larry Schwartz, 87, and Joanna Cuccia, 89, were approaching the Stein Senior Center on East 23rd Street near Third Avenue – a short distance from their apartment – around 11 a.m. Wednesday when the male suspect held the door open and asked Cuccia for directions to a Walmart, he said.
“I said, ‘There are no Walmarts in New York City,’ and then he said, ‘Oh, tell my wife, tell my wife,’” Cuccia said.
The stranger, believed to be in his 40s, led Cuccia outside to the curb where a woman sat in the back seat of the passenger side of a gray SUV.
Once Cuccia met the supposed wife – who appeared to be about 35 years old – at the window, she quickly sensed something was off.
“As I’m talking, what she had in her hand was a lot of chains and bracelets,” she said.
“They were trying to show that they were very rich, I guess. But I wasn’t interested in that. She extended her hand and I thought she wanted to shake, but she then grabbed my hand and started kissing my hand and carefully looking at the ring and the watch that I had on. I didn’t like the whole thing.”
The trouble started when Schwartz, who had been in the lobby, came out to see what was going on.
The female passenger quickly fixated on Schwartz’s Presidential Rolex – which he’s owned for more than 40 years and values at $48,000 – and suddenly offered him a watch of her own that appeared to be a cheap knockoff.
“She dangles this fake Rolex,” Schwartz said.
“She’s offering me what supposedly was a better one. Before I even held it, I knew it was fake. I knew there was something wrong.”
As Schwartz held the fake, the greedy woman got her hands on his wrist, he said.
“So she extended her arm and grabbed the watch on my wrist, and she was adept enough to move my thumb down and flip the catch,” Schwartz recalled.
“So the watch slid off my wrist. Right away the bells went off. What I did was I grabbed her wrist and pulled her whole body and smashed it against the side of the open window. She’s screaming.
“And just for good measure, I gave her arm a three-quarter twist,” he added.
“Now, she’s still holding on to my watch. So what I did was slip my hand under her wrist. I grabbed her wrist and banged her whole body against the inside of the car. She’s screaming like crazy.”
Her male accomplice, meanwhile, made a last-ditch effort – retrieving a wad of bills from the car and fanning them in front of Cuccia’s face.
“He made a fan of it and he said, ‘Come, choose whatever bills you want,’” she said.
“And at that point I really knew we were in deep s–t. It was so bizarre. I stayed put and did not go for that. In the meantime, Larry’s having a tug-of-war with the bitch that’s trying to get his real Rolex.”
Finally, the male driver got back into the car, turned it on and revved up the engine – prompting Schwartz to let go of Cuccia’s wrist – and the pair hit the road in their silver late model Jeep Compass.
Schwartz refused medical attention for minor bruises and cuts, cops said.
Despite his age, he said fighting off the would-be thief was a natural instinct for him.
“I’m a physical person. I’m not bashful,” he said.
“I’ve been involved in physical things a good part of my life. I work out with weights every day. I run. I do the whole nine yards.”
But he said he doubts that “the general citizenry” would be “in any condition, shape or skill to take them on.”
Schwartz said he also has little hope that the devious duo will wind up in cuffs – or at least not for long.
“The biggest word I can put on the two of them is brazenness,” he said.
“These people have no fear. I think they have no fear that if they do get caught they’re going to get turned loose. But I don’t think they believe there’s much chance they’re going to get nailed.”
And Cuccia, a seasoned New Yorker, described the late-morning robbery attempt as “shocking.”
“I’ve lived in New York all my life, through a lot of administrations, a lot of difficult crime times,” she said.
“I’ve never been involved in anything like this. I’ve always been on the street, but I’ve never been gray-haired before and I feel more vulnerable than ever.”
Robberies and grand larcenies in the confines of the 13th Precinct, which covers the area where the stick-up happened, are on the rise so far this year, according to the latest NYPD data.
A total of 124 robberies have been reported as of Sunday within the precinct’s boundaries – about a 19 percent leap from the 104 reported within the same timeframe in 2024.
And the precinct tallied 192 grand larcenies so far in 2025, jumping about 21 percent from the 159 reported during the same period last year, the statistics show.
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