Entertaining story in the Times today about the Metro-North lost and found, located next to the cop shop in Grand Central. Among the nuggets Ken Belson unearths: around 60% of lost items are reclaimed by their owners, a website helps the losers find their gear, and unclaimed stuff is shipped to Alabama to be resold. (Unclaimed Baggage Center splits the proceeds with Metro-North.)
Among the more interesting items that have turned up at the lost and found over the years : a $100,000 violin, a few sets of false teeth, some prosthetic limbs after a bunch of old soldiers from a veteran’s hospital went on the piss, and folk singer Pete Seeger’s banjo.
Among the things that probably will never be claimed, or resold in Alabama: a George Bush doll that sings “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.”