New2NY: Lost and Rarely Found

Allow me to begin where I often do. Below the blacktop of Lexington Avenue, on the level of the rats and drip water, I took the subway to work this morning. Deeply absorbed in my light-hearted fiction novel (I’d highly recommend “The New Yorkers” to anyone who wants an escape and loves dogs), I was pressed between a pole and a hard backpack for several stops mindlessly enjoying my story when I hear something drop.

I’ve begun to be paranoid about losing possessions on the Subway these days. With so many people and so many trains, I always imagined it would be impossible to find lost items. So when I heard something drop and no one around me bent down to pick it up, I looked down and picked up a pair of sunglasses. Holding them up, I looked around to a sea full of blank I-would-never-be-so-irresponsible-as-to-lose-sunglasses-on-the-subway faces. No one claimed. “Maybe she already left,” a younger woman in a red tweed coat suggested, as if we were at a party and the lady had gone home early.

Now what was I supposed to do? I picked them up hoping to be the Good Samaritan who saved someone else from having to the bend-over surf in the subway – not an easy task. But now I was responsible for the sunglasses. “Is there a subway lost and found?” I asked with a half smile to indicate that I probably already knew the answer and, at the same time, that I cared about getting the glasses back to their proper owner.

So I did some research. A subway lost and found actually DOES exist in New York. The New York City Transit’s Lost and Found unit collects about 8,000 items each year, either by riders turning things in or by employees cleaning out trains. Initially when I saw this I was tempted to call the phone number and see what I could do. However, then I read on this NY Times blog that only about 18% of these items are actually claimed by their owners. Whether this is because the owners do not know there is a Lost and Found, or whether the owners even know they lost anything to begin with, I’m not sure. In the end, I decided there was nothing I could really do except maybe keep a pair of made in China black sunglasses with a gold stripe down the sides.

Now thinking about all the germs on the train floors, I should pry wash before wearing.

If you do ever lose something of real value on the Subway and think it might have been turned in, the New York City Transit's Lost and Found unit is open M, T, F, 8 AM – 4:00 PM and W, Th, 11 AM – 7:00 PM. The phone number is 212-712-4500.