Lost in New York? Try the Finds at Grand Central

What could an artificial leg, an Armani jacket, a $15,000 diamond ring and a glass eyeball possibly have in common?

Those and other objects, strange and mundane, wound up at the lost and found department of Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, a monument to careless commuters.

On any given day, about 4,000 lost possessions line the steel gray shelves and racks of a mammoth room off the terminal’s lower concourse, just across from the famed Oyster Bar. On a sunny fall day, the windowless chamber sheltered a single crutch, a police badge and architectural blueprints. One bin was marked “September glasses,” another “October glasses.”

Last year, Pete Seeger’s banjo landed there, but it found its way back to the folk singer, who lives north of New York City.

About 125,000 passengers use the Metro-North railroad daily to commute from the city’s northern suburbs and Connecticut, with Grand Central as the terminus.

Perhaps the oddest item to make it to the lost and found was an urn of human ashes, although that may have been a product of intentional forgetfulness.

The urn was never claimed, said Fred Chidester, an ex-cop who managed the lost and found for years. Months later, a man called Metro-North to say that he had read about the abandoned ashes; he claimed that he knew the woman who left them on the train -- as revenge for her husband’s alleged infidelity.

“He would call her at home to say the train was late, or that the train bypassed the station, or that he fell asleep. But those were excuses so he could meet his girlfriend,” Chidester said. “So when he died, his wife thought it was fitting that she leave his ashes on the train.”

No. 1 on Grand Central’s list of most commonly lost items is the cell phone, with 250 to 300 turned in each month.

Keys are the next most common item, followed by eyeglasses, coats and jackets, and umbrellas. (However, this year’s drought has cut down on the number of lost umbrellas.)

The fact is, forgetfulness is weather-sensitive: When it turns cold, the coat racks expand.

“You can tell the weather down here,” said Margie Anders, spokeswoman for Metro-North.

The smorgasbord of lost items in the last few years has included a film script with director’s instructions scribbled in the margins, a .357-Magnum handgun, fishing poles and a child’s violin. Laptops and blue blazers, the corporate commuter’s gear, turn up all the time.

After 90 days, most items become the property of the finder if he or she is interested. One man was honest enough to turn in a $1 bill -- and penny-wise enough to leave his name in case it was not claimed.

Otherwise, the items are given away. On this day, seven bags of clothing were ready for charitable donation.

In early November, 249 pairs of eyeglasses were going to the Lions Club in Connecticut, which recycles the lenses and gives them to the poor in Third World countries. Coats and toys go to such charities as Goodwill and Toys for Tots.

Items worth $5,000 or more, such as digital cameras and jewelry, are stored in a safe and, by law, must be kept for three years before they’re up for grabs.

The $15,000 diamond was stashed in one of three bags forgotten by a woman at the Poughkeepsie train station.

She was lucky and got everything back.

The Grand Central lost and found averages a high return rate. So far this year, about 60% of the items turned in have been retrieved by their owners.

That compares favorably to Tokyo Station, where about 30% of items find their way back to their owners, says Paul Noguchi, an urban anthropologist who has studied lost and founds throughout the world.

“Everyone thought that if you lost something in New York, that was the end of it,” said Noguchi, a professor at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. “The surprise is that a lot of people turn in stuff in New York City. New Yorkers are still basically honest.”

The success rate at Grand Central may also be due to methodology: Each lost item is entered into a computer database, with details such as label names and contents of pockets.

Employees also take the initiative to find an item’s owner -- for instance, looking through a cell phone to locate a home number.

“It’s partially a detective job,” said Mike Nolan, current manager of Grand Central’s lost and found.

Some people walk away with a smile. Russ Cooper, who calls himself “a regular customer” at Grand Central’s lost and found, left his sports jacket on the train to New Haven, Conn., in October.

“It was the first chilly day of the season,” said the acoustics consultant from Wilton, Conn., who wasn’t used to wearing a jacket.

After he retrieved it, Cooper reached into a pocket. “Let’s see if my keys are still here,” he said, flashing a smile as he pulled out a full key chain.