Weekend rash of 11 killings in New York that evoked the bloody days of decades past included a shooting yesterday that sounded like a relic from those times: a man killed for his gold chain.

The victim, Erik A. Cortes, 24, was shot on Columbia Street on the Lower East Side shortly after midnight Sunday. Mr. Cortes became the 10th homicide in the city beginning Friday night, the police said. It was followed later Sunday morning by a fatal stabbing of an unidentified man in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

"The rash of homicides over the weekend is exceptional because of record low crime in New York," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday in a prepared statement.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, speaking yesterday after a street-naming ceremony in Queens, acknowledged the weekend's violence. "There are too many guns on the street.'' The mayor said that guns had one purpose: to kill.

The spike in killings comes as the city's overall homicide rate remains below levels of a year ago. Through July 4, there were 273 killings in the city in 2004, down from 307 for the same period in 2003.

The Lower East Side, where Mr. Cortes died yesterday, was where he was reared, growing up to become a dialysis technician in the Bronx and living with his mother in Yonkers, his aunt said. He had saved for some time for his white gold chain, with a cross and diamonds.

"He was struggling not to give up the chain; he put up a fight," said his aunt, Candida Rosario. "Maybe if he would give it up, it wouldn't have happened. But he worked hard for what he earned."

The police said he was leaning up against a car when two men approached and one shot him.

His friend, Alex Ortiz, 24, was at a nearby playground at the time, and said yesterday: "He didn't have problems with anyone. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was just for the chain."

Since 8:45 p.m. Friday, when two men were shot, one fatally, in the Bronx, there were eight killings in Brooklyn, one in Queens, and the shooting of Mr. Cortes in Manhattan, the police said.

In one of the shooting cases, two men died, but the second will be ruled a suicide and is not counted among the 11 victims, the police said.

At about 6 p.m. Saturday, a 17-year-old man fatally wounded Andrew Gummo, 22, on 63rd Road in Rego Park, Queens, and then fled into a subway station, the police said. When officers chased him, he left the station and shot himself in the head in an alley off Saunders Street, the police said.

The gunman was identified as Norris Anderson of 63rd Road.

The last homicide occurred at about 7 a.m. yesterday, when a man was discovered with a stab wound to the stomach in front of 547 Classon Avenue, Prospect Heights, the police said. He died almost six hours later at Woodhull Hospital.

He was not immediately identified yesterday, and the police did not suggest a motive.

Sourcve: Agencies