Man bashed with skateboard in park

A Manhattan man who was bashed in the face with a skateboard over the weekend wants the city to step up its enforcement against riders in Washington Square Park.

Lawrence Mauro, a Parks Department worker, said he was in the park carrying some bagels and texting another employee Sunday when a teenage girl on a skateboard bumped into him and berated him about being in her way.

Mauro (inset), 59, who has several physical ailments including spinal fusion and a knee replacement, barked back at her.

“Don’t you see me standing here with a cane?” he yelled.

Then, a man approached him aggressively and told him to get out of the way, Mauro said.

“He got right in my face and starts yelling, ‘Why don’t you move?’ My niece wants to skateboard here. Why don’t you get out of the way?’ ”

Then, Mauro said, the man got on the skateboard himself, rode past and bumped him.

“I lost it,” Mauro said, “and hit him in the back with my cane after he hit me.”

Mauro said the man tried to goad him, but Mauro said he just laughed at him instead.

“I laughed in his face, and I think that totally infuriated him,” Mauro said.

Moments later, Mauro said, the man swung the skateboard and hit him in the side of the head. Mauro went down, bagels and all.

“I was just spitting mad,” Mauro said. “And I started to get up, and he hit me again on the other side. I don’t think he expected me to get up at all.”

But Mauro got to his feet after the second hit, and managed to snap a picture of his attacker on his cell phone.

He said the man and his niece both left.

Mauro called the police, and an ambulance took him to the emergency room, where he was treated for a concussion and a black eye.

Mauro’s husband, Bob Pesce, 67, said the attack was another physical setback.