Gunfire tore through two windows of a Morrisania building that houses a nonprofit arts center just after 2 p.m. Friday, sending a parked car's metal crumpling under stray rounds as the shooter bolted on foot. No one was hurt, but the shooting has left neighbors on Washington Avenue shaken and police searching for answers.
According to News 12 Bronx, the gunman opened fire near 1088 Washington Avenue, with bullets striking two windows of the building at 1085 Washington Avenue and damaging a nearby parked car. Police said the car had no occupants inside at the time, and the NYPD confirmed that no one was injured in the shooting. The gunman fled the scene immediately afterward, and investigators released images Saturday of a suspect described as wearing a gray zip-up hoodie, black shorts, and black sneakers.
The building struck by gunfire is more than just an apartment complex. It houses the DreamYard Art Center on its first floor, a nonprofit founded in 1994 that runs social justice education, after-school care, and poetry slam residencies across more than a dozen Bronx public schools, according to NYC-ARTS. Upstairs, the nine-story building provides 90 units of affordable housing, including 89 units serving low-income families and formerly homeless residents, per Affordable Housing Online. The property was financed through Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and HOME grants when it opened in 2009.
A Precinct Already on Edge
The shooting happened just blocks from the NYPD's 42nd Precinct station house at 830 Washington Avenue, which patrols Morrisania and the surrounding neighborhoods, according to NYC.gov. That proximity underscores how close the daylight gunfire came to the very officers tasked with stopping it. Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), the department said, as the gunman remains at large.
The Friday shooting adds to a violent stretch in Morrisania this month. Just five days earlier, on August 10, a 17-year-old boy was fatally shot in the head outside a residential building on Prospect Avenue, in a case Hoodline reported remains unsolved with no arrests made as of mid-August. Weeks before that, on July 5, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the leg near Fulton Avenue and East 173rd Street, close enough to force a temporary shutdown of the public Crotona Pool.
Legal Stakes if the Gunman Is Caught
Under New York Penal Law § 120.25, recklessly firing shots toward buildings or vehicles can constitute First-Degree Reckless Endangerment, a Class D felony punishable by up to seven years in state prison, according to Saland Law. That charge requires prosecutors to demonstrate a depraved indifference to human life, a standard that could apply if investigators determine the gunman fired toward occupied buildings without any specific intent to hit a person. The NYPD Crime Stoppers program, run in partnership with the New York City Police Foundation, offers rewards of up to $3,500 for anonymous tips leading to an arrest and indictment in violent felony cases, per the New York City Police Foundation.
Friday's incident also echoes a February case on Boston Road, where gunmen fired multiple shots that struck an unoccupied parked car without causing injuries, prompting police to circulate surveillance images of two suspects who fled, as Hoodline previously covered in its report on the Boston Road rush-hour scare. City officials have touted aggressive gun-seizure efforts in the area; in July 2025, Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD leaders gathered at the 42nd Precinct to showcase seized firearms, announcing that officers had taken more than 3,000 illegal guns off city streets in the first seven months of that year, according to News 12 Bronx, an average of 14 illegal guns seized per day citywide.
Whether the gunman was targeting the parked car, the building, or someone else entirely remains unclear, and police have not said what sparked Friday's gunfire. For now, the DreamYard Art Center and the families living above it are left waiting for answers, as investigators continue searching for the man in the gray hoodie who vanished into the Morrisania streets.
