Etan Patz’s parents move out of NYC 40 years after son’s infamous disappearance
Forty years after their 6-year-old son Etan Patz disappeared on a Soho street, Julie and Stan Patz have started a new chapter.
The couple quietly sold their Prince Street loft this summer and relocated to Hawaii in recent weeks, The Post has learned.
“They are moving on . . . to a beautiful place to share whatever time they have left with their child and their grandchildren,” longtime neighbor Susan Meisel told The Post.
The couple’s son Ari, who was 2 when his brother went missing, lives in the Aloha State. Their daughter, Shira, was 8 at the time of Etan’s disappearance.
According to StreetEasy, the family’s 2,350-square foot-loft at 113 Prince St. sold for 3.75 million in June.
Reached by phone, Julie had no comment.
It was from outside the cast-iron building that on May 25, 1979, Julie watched her son walk half of the two-block journey to his school bus stop at West Broadway.
The first-grader was making the short journey alone for the very first time, but it would be the last time his mother saw him.
Etan’s disappearance launched a media storm that gripped the entire nation and shattered an age of innocence, forcing parents to curtail their children’s independence. The case also ushered in major developments in the way authorities dealt with missing-children cases.
Stan and Julie never changed their phone number or moved, in the hopes that their son would reach out or return home.
“They waited and waited and never left because God forbid there was something to wait for,” said Meisel, who spoke to the family this past week.
In 2017, Pedro Hernandez — who in 1979 was an 18-year-old stockboy at a Soho deli — was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Etan, and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. The boy’s remains have never been found.
Now the family has a chance to leave behind the ghosts of their past.
“Prince Street is no longer their haven. This is a new chapter that will help them live with their grief,” said Meisel, adding, “They are very nice people. I just wish them luck.”
