New Yorkers are debating whether the city is growing ever more heartless in the face of crime after dozens of people ignored a homeless man bleeding to death in the street.

People ignored the dying man for nearly two hours as he lay in a street in Queens after saving a woman from being mugged.

CCTV footage showed Hugo Tale-Yax, a homeless man, collapsing with stab wounds on a pavement shortly after stopping the mugger, who had been armed with a knife.

He lay dying in a pool of blood as people strolled past, some pausing briefly to look at him.

One man even emerged from a building to photograph Mr Tale-Yax, a 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, with his mobile phone. Another man bent down to shake him, lifting him to reveal the pool of blood, but he still walked away.

When police and firemen finally arrived at 7.23 am on Sunday in the Jamaica neighbourhood of Queens to find Mr Tale-Yax dead, he had been lying in the street for an hour and 40 minutes.

The same video footage earlier showed an unidentified woman being accosted by a man, who was then involved with a scuffle with Mr Tale-Yax. As the other two fled in opposite directions, Mr Tale-Yax staggered a few yards before collapsing. He was found by firemen responding to an emergency call.

Police said they received three calls, one about a screaming woman and another about a man lying in the street.

But both calls apparently gave the wrong address and officers found the right location only after a third call.

The incident has reminded New Yorkers of the notorious killing in 1964 of Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death in Queens. About a dozen neighbours heard her screams but did not call the police.