Subway jitters: 3 hours on trains and no searches
October 8, 2005
Originally published in New York Daily News
Filed under: Metro
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Six trains plus one stroller minus a baby added up to zero searches yesterday on the subway.

To test the heightened police presence and random searches of riders in the city's vast subway system, the Daily News spent three hours riding the rails with a baby carriage.

The $16 Kmart stroller was apple green with tiny Winnie the Pooh characters peeking out from a gingham print. It carried two shopping bags and a blue-and-white shoulder purse. But no toddler.

A day earlier, FBI and NYPD officials had warned New Yorkers of a terrorist plot to strike the subways with bomb-laden baby carriages and briefcases.

Yet, I wasn't stopped - and it seemed like I was hardly even noticed.

I started at Penn Station, taking the No. 1 train uptown. Never having pushed a stroller into a subway station, I had to ask a Transit Authority worker how to get past the turnstiles. I was quickly buzzed through a gate and made my way to the platform, where a cop nibbled on some Skittles.

I rode the A, L, 6 and 1 trains twice and the Times Square shuttle, entering through turnstile gates at Grand Central Terminal, Union Square, Penn Station and City Hall. Cops were at all the stations, but none were conducting searches when I was there.

At the shuttle, a gaggle of 10 or so officers did not notice my missing baby. Several straphangers gave the stroller a second look, but no one spoke up despite Mayor Bloomberg's warning: "If you see something, say something."

Cops only asked questions when Daily News photographer Matthew Roberts snapped pictures in the Union Square station. The officers took down his name and press pass number, and a cop told him: "Everybody's being pretty vigilant today."

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