Three people were wounded in a shooting in Times Square early Saturday, according to the police, turning a crowded area of Midtown Manhattan into a crime scene.
The shooting occurred at West 44th Street and Seventh Avenue, in one of the most popular tourist spots in the world, around 1:20 a.m., according to a spokeswoman for the New York Police Department.
One person was in custody, but charges have not been filed, she said.
The three victims — a 19-year-old man and a 65-year-old man with gunshot wounds to their lower limbs, and an 18-year-old woman with a graze wound to the neck — were taken to Bellevue Hospital and were likely to survive, the spokeswoman said.
New York is in the thick of a mayor’s race in which crime, especially in high-traffic spots like Times Square and subway stations, has been one of the defining issues. It took on even more prominence after Zohran Mamdani, who has drawn criticism for his remarks about the police, won the Democratic primary in July.
Late last month, a gunman killed four people in an office building on Park Avenue, including an off-duty New York City police officer, before killing himself. The workplace shooting was particularly shocking in the center of the city.
Still, New York saw the fewest shooting episodes and victims on record in the first seven months of 2025, according to the Police Department.
After Saturday’s shooting, the police shut parts of Seventh Avenue and Broadway in the area, and more than a dozen police cars lined the streets.
Ahmed Talal was in his ice cream truck at Seventh Avenue in the mid-40s when he heard the gunshots. He said he looked down Seventh toward 45th and 44th Streets and saw three people running down the street in his direction, “followed by about 10 cops.”
An hour and a half after the shooting, there were crowds of people walking and gawking along the six blocks that the police had cordoned off. But it was about half the number of people he would normally see, even at 3 a.m. on a Saturday, Mr. Talal said.
“That’s why I’m closing up early,” said Mr. Talal, who usually stays open until dawn on summer weekends, as he handed a waffle cone to a lone customer.