{"id":163758,"date":"2025-08-21T12:30:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T12:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163758\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T12:30:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T12:30:34","slug":"valuables-stuck-in-the-muck-subway-dropped-items-team-is-on-the-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163758\/","title":{"rendered":"Valuables Stuck in the Muck? Subway Dropped-Items Team Is on the Case."},"content":{"rendered":"

When Isla Agir\u2019s glasses were knocked from her hands and onto the southbound No. 6 line track at 14th Street-Union Square last Thursday morning, she wasn\u2019t sure she would be reunited with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to cost me, if I buy here, $8,000,\u201d Agir said of her Italian-made Lombardo frames. \u201cThey have the thinner lenses with the three effects and the blue vision, so it was not my intent for them to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

By that same night, the 57-year-old Manhattan woman had the glasses back in her possession after a crew of MTA workers used a pole with a \u201cgrabber\u201d claw to pluck them from the south end of the local track.<\/p>\n

They had been returned for holding to station agent Luis Gomez, who donned latex gloves to clean them with disinfectant wipes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remembered the first wagon \u2014 the first car \u2014 and I saw them directly drop down under the middle of the train,\u201d Agir told THE CITY. \u201cWhen I went back later, I looked, I didn\u2019t see, so I went upstairs and asked the person who worked there for help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Help would eventually arrive from Harlem in the form of an MTA \u201cCombined Action Team.\u201d Its members had been at the 145th Street station, walking the platforms with flashlights aimed at the B and D line tracks while looking for a Samsung Galaxy phone.<\/p>\n

The searches at 145th Street and at Union Square were among the thousands of dropped-property calls MTA workers respond to each year, according to agency data.<\/p>\n

The objects aren\u2019t always easy to spot.<\/p>\n

At 145th Street, the Galaxy phone described by its owner\u2019s daughter as being in a pink case on the northbound B track was actually in a dark case \u2014 and on the southbound D.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was overjoyed, she said, \u2018Thank you so much,\u2019\u201d station agent Natasha Simon said after notifying the daughter that the phone had been recovered and would be stored for her to reclaim it.<\/p>\n

The workers then headed upstairs to St. Nicholas Avenue to await their next call, which dispatched them to 14th Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the 6 line, track southbound,\u201d signal supervisor Godwin DeWeever said during a call with the MTA\u2019s operations control center. \u201cGlasses?\u201d<\/p>\n

Numbers provided to THE CITY by the MTA show there have been more than 6,700 dropped-property calls so far this year. There were 11,147 in all of 2024, 12,054 the previous year and 10,490 in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"MTAThe claw tool used by expert stuff-grabbers, Aug. 14, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

Among the more-curious items pulled from the tracks: a trumpet at the 39th Avenue stop on the N\/W lines in Long Island City, Queens; a 32-inch television at the Burnside Avenue station along the No. 4 in Morris Heights, The Bronx; and even a pair of dentures from the No. 6 line\u2019s Bronx terminal at Pelham Bay Park.<\/p>\n

Butter-fingered riders are usually grateful to the workers who retrieve their stuff out of the path of subway trains, the fishers say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey try to give you tips,\u201d said Vladimir Mushinsky, an action team member who more commonly responds to calls about malfunctioning signals. \u201cI say, \u2018No, no, no!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep It Moving<\/p>\n

Since 2015, MTA data shows that transit workers have recovered more than 8,400 mobile phones from the tracks, followed by more than 700 eyeglasses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCiti Bikes, shopping carts from the grocery store,\u201d said Daniel Campbell, superintendent of a team made up of track inspectors and signal and third-rail maintainers. \u201cIt seems all types of stuff makes its way onto the tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wireless AirPods and headphones are increasingly becoming dropped-on-the-tracks casualties in the subway, with more than 700 calls alone this year, according to the MTA. That\u2019s second only to the 1,200 calls about dropped mobile phones.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s daily \u2014 it can range from one or two [calls] a day to upwards of 10,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s in addition to the other calls affecting service.\u201d<\/p>\n

The responses are carried out with safety protocols designed to protect workers and to keep trains moving with little or no impact on service. The operations control center and train operators are told in advance of a dropped-property crew\u2019s location, with workers waving flashlights to further alert those operating the trains.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn MTA crew shows up to the 145th Street station in Harlem to retrieve an item on the tracks, Aug. 14, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of that is to just keep things moving, for us to work in between trains without disturbing service,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n

A 22-year-veteran of New York City Transit, Campbell added that riders who spill things onto the tracks can increase their chances of having items recovered if they provide specific location information to the MTA.<\/p>\n

Those can be numbers on station walls or nearby staircases or elevators, the direction of subway service and whether the track is local or express.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more detail, the better,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n

In Agir\u2019s case, her attention to detail when reporting her dropped glasses helped shave how much time workers spent finding them, even if they at first retrieved a battered pair of blue sunglasses that were coated in subway scum.<\/p>\n

\"MTAIsla Agir\u2019s glasses after being plucked from the tracks at Union Square, Aug. 14, 2025. Credit: Jose Martinez\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, those look like they\u2019ve been there a while,\u201d Campbell said when they picked up the first set of less-expensive looking shades.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later and further down the track, the workers spotted Agir\u2019s glasses.<\/p>\n

She said she would have no problem putting them on again, adding that she never considered going onto the tracks herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no, I know the stories \u2014 when I study English, they show us,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m just so happy, I\u2019m thankful for those workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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