UWS SHOOT-SLAY
Another victim in summer of gunfire
A 29-year-old man was fatally shot on the Upper West Side early Thursday, another victim of the city’s weeks-long rash of gun violence.
Nayquan Garden was blasted in the chest at West 104th Street and Columbus Avenue, on the grounds of the Frederick Douglass Houses where he lived, at about 3:15 a.m., cops said.
He stumbled to the east intersection of West 105th Street and Columbus Avenue, where he was discovered, according to police.
Police said Garden was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, where he died.
One of Garden’s friends told The Post that the victim was a designer who was “into fashion.”
“He was very passionate about his fashion and music,” the friend said. “He was the greatest underdog.”
A teen resident of the Frederick Douglass Houses said he was shooting off Roman candles with friends around the time of the incident when he heard a loud snap.
“I ran,” he said. “I heard the yelling but I wasn’t going back. This block is getting crazy!”
Investigators recovered several .38-caliber shell casings at the scene but had not made an arrest as of Thursday evening.
Garden’s family declined to comment beyond telling The Post a memorial service for the slain man would be held outside the housing complex on Thursday evening.
It was one of four shooting incidents reported overnight Wednesday and early Thursday.
The other three shootings took place in Brooklyn and were not fatal, according to police sources.
The first took place shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday in Brownsville, where a 62-year-old man told authorities he was on Rockaway Avenue he heard gunfire and quickly realized he had been shot in the left leg. He was taken to Brookdale Hospital.
Less than an hour later, another 62-year-old man was shot twice in East New York, in the culmination of a dispute.
He was struck in the left hand and chest, and also taken to Brookdale Hospital. His condition was not immediately known.
The night’s final shooting came shortly before midnight in Stuyvesant Heights, where a 22-year-old man was grazed by a bullet.
The victim was on Jefferson Avenue at about 11:45 p.m. when an unknown gunman came up from behind and fired multiple shots, with one bullet grazing the victim’s leg. He was taken to Methodist Hospital.
The shootings come after bloody weeks of shootings in the Big Apple.
Police said incidents last week were three times higher than in the same period last year, with 74 shootings and 101 victims over the course of the week — up from 26 shootings and 33 victims in 2019.