The feisty octogenarian pummeled by a cowardly mugger in the lꦕobby of her West Village building set aside her pain Saturday — to warn fellow seniors about the dangers they face in the Big Apple.
“We are [an] easy mark. I’m short, I’m elderly, I have a cane … I don’t want this to happen to any other seniors,” Barbara Ann Davison said, less than a day after the vicious attack. “Just be careful, look out, keep your eyes open and if something happens, call out and people will come – they are New Yorkers. They will help you.”
Davison, 81, was returning from a trip to Duane Reade Friday night when a creep in a dark hoodie ꦕand ballcap followed her into the vestibule of her building, grabbed her red bag and began pounding her in the face.
“It happened so fast,” said the some-time ac✱tress, who uses a purple cane and has appeared in episodes of “Orange൩ is the New Black” and “Going In Style.”
“I was coming up the stairs with the key🥀s in my hand ready to get in the door when I felt two blows to both sides of my face close to the eyes.”
Davison🧸 is the latest in a string of elder𓄧ly crime victims in the city who are being targeted by opportunistic thugs.
On Oct. 11, 91-year-old Waldiman Thompson died of a heart attack when thieves broke into the Bedford-Stuyvesant home he shared with wife Ethlไin, 100, and hog-tied the couple.
And last week, an 85-year-old Flushing woman was robbed of a $4,000 ring at knifepoi🌞nt in her apartment by a man responding to a furniture sales ad.
The vicious attack on Davison was caught on 💦surveillance video, which shows the thief repeatedly slamming his fist into her head, then reaching down to snatch her bag as she lay helpless on the vestibule floor.
“I p🐻ut up my right hand to shield my face. I hurt my shoulder,” she said holding on🐬 to her bruised shoulder.
Davison lost her⛎ iPhone, credit and bank cards, Screen Actors Guild card, her Metro Card — and, worst of all, her makeup in the robbery.
As she spoke to reporters outside her building Saturday, she joked about hav🧸ing her picture taken when all she could find to put on was an old tube of lipstick.
“What can I say: 81-years-old and still vain,” she✱ laughed.
Davison wishes there were more street lights on her corner, at Seventh Avenue and West 13th Street, and from now on will take her ownꦉ advice about playing it safe.
She usually takes an Uber to a nearby street corner when she’s out and about, but in the future, plans to ask the drivers to pull right up t❀o her building and wait until she’s inside.
“I feel very lucky. It could have been much worse. I’m hopeful that they will find him,” she 🦋said, add꧟ing she has no hate for her attacker.
“Whatever caused him to do this, whatever needs he has, I hope he 𝓰gets whatever help he needs,” she said.
The super of Davison’s bu♍ilding wasn’t as benevolent.
“He should be tied to the ground in a red fire ants farm, and … feel the pain he has inflicted,” Arleen Gonzalez, 50, quipped.
“She is a tough cookie,” Gonzalez said of Davison, “I’m thrilled she is okay. … [but] I’m beyond angry. I’m beyond pissed because of what happened to her and the way it happened to her because it was not necessary.
“How could you do somet﷽hing like that?” Gonzalez fumed. “You are the biggest slug in the world to do something like t🌊hat.”