With its yellow school bus–clogged streets and mom-and-pop-riddled baseball and soccer leagues, it's easy to mistake the Upper West Side for the suburbs. (Okay, maybe not always — this also being the land of screaming street preachers and the occasional red state–blue state smackdown — but it's close.) Which makes the appearance all over the neighborhood of this poster asking for information about missing Brooklyn Friends student Zachary Manning doubly distressing. Is there an abductor at loose? The Post says a suburban-style Amber alert isn't likely; the police don't believe Zach is the victim of "foul play."

Friends and family members do want to hear from anyone who may know anything about the whereabouts of Manning, a former Stuyvesant High School student who lives in Morningside Heights. A runaway situation isn't thought to be the case, and it's not as if he disappeared from a divey bar at 4 a.m. (Indeed, he was last seen at the Jewish Community Center at 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue Sunday at 6:30 p.m.) The suddenly ubiquitous posters are particularly troubling for residents of the usually sedate neighborhood, where most of the notices taped to lampposts advertise block parties, dog-walking services, and Nadler political rallies. "The last one like this I remember was a woman years ago who went missing after she saw an unlicensed plastic surgeon," says Dan Bial, a book agent who lives in the West 80s. The NYPD is taking tips at 845-820-8435.

— S. Jhoanna Robledo