A city of nearly nine million people means countless stories of forgotten phones, lost engagement rings, favorite jackets left behind and cash-filled wallets misplaced.
Many are never seen again But New Yorkers may be surprised to learn the city has a vast network made for returning lost items to their rightful owners — and how many city dwellers have actually reunited with their stuff, sometimes via good Samaritans and sometimes through lost-and-found professionals.
There are different methods for finding your missing things depending on where you lost it, be it the transit system or the trash. THE CITY compiled instructions for the public places people lose their items across the city — happy hunting:
On Public Transit
If you lose something in New York’s huge transit network, you may be in more luck than you think. The MTA has a department, the New York City Public Transit Lost and Found, whose entire job is to collect and return the tens of thousands of forgotten items that go through its system every year. According to the MTA, they receive an average of 500 to 600 lost items a week and have a current return rate of 18%.
And don’t despair if you just realized a week later that you dropped your favorite hat on the bus. According to the MTA, they’ll hold on to found items for at least three months or at most three years, depending on the estimated value of the item.
There are different steps, however, for lost stuff depending on what branch of the transit system you were in. Also, it’ll depend on where and when you lose the item and how quickly you realize it’s lost. Here’s what to know:
If you lose an item on the subway…
- Go to the station booth agent as soon as you realize your item is missing, nearest where you lost the item. If someone returns your item, it’ll stay in the booth until it gets transferred to the Lost and Found office at the 34 St-Penn Station (8 Av) subway stop, usually for at least a day.
- Be prepared to describe your item in detail. This is to make sure no one fraudulently or accidentally claims your item as theirs.
- If they have it: You’ll have to complete a lost property receipt with your name and address when you pick it up. You’ll also need valid identification that matches the name on the receipt.
- If they don’t have it: You can file a claim with the agency’s Lost and Found department. If the MTA finds an item matching your description, they’ll be in touch with you via the contact information you put on the claim. Heads up: The agency prefers to use email for communication.
If you lose an item on the bus …
- Call 511 to see if your item is at the bus depot. If a bus driver found your item, they’ll return it to one of 29 bus depots across the city before it’s transferred to the Lost and Found department. If it makes it to a bus depot, the 511 operator will give you an address for the specific depot to get your item back.
If you lose an item on the Staten Island Railway …
- Check in at the St. George Terminal. Lost items are held there before they get sent to the central Lost and Found office in the 34 St-Penn Station (8 Av) subway stop.
If you lose an item on the Metro-North …
- Fill out the online Metro-North Lost Property Customer Inquiry Form or …
- Visit the Lost and Found office for Metro-North in person at Grand Central Terminal. The office is open on weekdays from 7 a.m.to 6 p.m..
If you lose an item on the Long Island Railroad …
- Fill out the online Lost Property Customer Inquiry Form or …
- Visit the Lost and Found office for LIRR in person at Penn Station, between Track 16 and Track 17 in the exit concourse. (Note that the other Lost and Found office on the subway side of Penn Station is for things lost on the subway only, not LIRR.) The office is open on weekdays from 7:20 a.m. to 7:20 p.m..
What to do once MTA staff has found your item…
- When the MTA representative contacts you to let you know they found your item, they will give instructions on how to set up the appointment. (Heads up: Their preference is to use email for communication.) Make an appointment online to pick up your item in person. If you need help setting up an appointment, call 511.
- Alternatively, the item can be shipped to you, but you will need to pay for the shipping costs. MTA representatives will give you more information on how to set that up.
In a Park
The Department of Parks and Recreation’s policy is to turn in any item with a value of $20 or more to the nearest police precinct. To find r where that might be, put in the address of the park or parks facility — such as a recreation center, pool or sports court — into the NYPD’s Find your Precinct tool. The NYPD also has special designated lost and found precincts throughout the city where people can return found items or search for their lost items.
Tareq Saghie, now in his twenties, was surprised to learn that his backpack that he lost in Central Park as a middle-schooler was returned to a local precinct within hours of his losing it.
He said everything was still in the backpack, including his laptop and his copy of the book The Giver.
“I was honestly shocked and relieved,” says Saghie. “I didn’t even know there was an NYPD lost and found, let alone that people actually utilized it.”
In the Trash
If you accidentally tossed something valuable into your trash on garbage day, the Department of Sanitation may be able to help — as long as the item is of significant value and you report it lost on the same day the item was collected with the trash.
THE CITY previously reported on New Yorkers who were successfully able to recover their stuff before the trash was put into containers and shipped off to landfills. One of those people, Theodora Adelabu, was on her way to Nigeria for her father’s funeral when she realized her backpack — filled with gold, jewelry, $10,000 in cash, traditional clothing for the service and a work laptop — had been picked up by sanitation workers.
Adelabu was able to coordinate with sanitation staff to visit a waste-transfer site later that day in Brooklyn. Wearing gloves, boots and a protective suit, Adelabu, guided by a team of DSNY staff, sorted through a morning’s worth of local trash, and after two hours, she spotted the backpack.
“I said, I found it — I found it,” she said. “I lifted it up, and I fell on the floor.”
In the last six months of 2021, the Department of Sanitation arranged 29 different lost valuables searches. The window of time to find the items, however, is very short, only two or three hours. All of the searches must be conducted by those who lost the items, but officials can help them by offering advice on where the item could be based on the time and location of the pickup, according to Timothy Belmer, a supervisor and export officer with DSNY.
To set up a search and rescue operation, call your nearest sanitation garage and get ready to get stinky.
In a Cab
If you lost something in a yellow or green taxi, you can get in touch with the taxi’s garage who will check if they have your item and arrange for you to pick it up. To find the garage, you’ll need to identify the taxi you lost your item in. Luckily, you can find the medallion, or taxi license number, on your taxi receipt (or often on your bank/credit card statement if you don’t have a paper receipt).
If you can’t find the medallion number, you can use the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) lookup tool, which will try to identify your taxi using the time and location of your trip. To get in touch with TLC, call them on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. at (718) 391-5502, and they’ll ask you details about your trip in order to figure out which taxi you took and in turn find the contact information for your taxi’s garage.
From there, contact the taxi’s garage, and if they have your item, you can arrange for a pickup.
On the Street
If you lost an item on the street, your best hope is a good Samaritan who may track you down themselves. It happens more often than you’d think.
THE CITY asked readers for their best lost-and-found stories and got dozens of replies back. Among them was Brooklyn resident Amanda Mull who said as a city newbie, lost her keys and card case on the subway platform and didn’t notice when she got onto the train.
“As the doors were closing, some guy fastballed them into the car with me,” she wrote on the social media site Bluesky. “It was at night, too, and I was still really unfamiliar with navigating the city and wouldn’t have had anywhere to go if I couldn’t have gotten into my apartment!”
Noam Ross left his phone and attached wallet on the subway. “Got home, used Find My Phone on my computer, and the map showed it was on my block approaching my door,” Ross wrote on Bluesky. The person had found Ross’s address on his identification card and walked the wallet back to his apartment.
Saghie says that his successful lost-and-found story makes him feel good about the city and its residents.
“It’s one of those moments I always think back to to remind myself that New Yorkers look after each other,” he said.
