Here we go again. I know I’ve told this story before, but it’s a good one, so I’ll tell it again.

When I first started working in NYC, just after I joined Platt’s Oilgram News as a ‘lobster’ temp, I had the opportunity to lend a compatriot my pair of sneakers.

One of the editors I worked with regularly had gotten a call from a young lady with whom he was quite smitten. She wanted to play squash, and he was wearing his ‘dusty bucks’ to the office. I was wearing a pair of Nike’s, might have been my Waffle Trainers (not the best for squash, but hey, needs must). It kind of made me queasy to swap shoes (who knows the fungus status), but he was so insistent, I went ahead and did so.

Cut to commuting time. He took off for his squash game, I got on the subway. The train was seriously packed. Like Tokyo 5PM packed. The train stopped off at some Midtown location, I seem to recall 42nd Street, and a young man got on and shoved in behind me. Just as we approached 33rd/34th Street for Penn Station, I felt his hand in my back pocket. I could not move my arms! I started yelling as the doors opened. A very portly policeman happened to be standing on the platform, hearing me yell. The young man pushed out as the people exited, tearing down the platform heading for the stairs. The policeman took off in pursuit as fast as he could after he heard me yell “pickpocket!”. I pushed out and began running too … almost reaching him before the staircase.

The young man, just before he took off up the stairs, looked down in his hand, and screamed “FUCK!”, throwing the goods onto the platform.

The policeman and I arrived at the same moment. He looked after the perp, saying to me, “He’s gone. Did he get your stuff?” I looked down, and started to laugh. The cop looked at me quizzically, and I reached into my front pocket and pulled out my wallet.

What did the thief get?

I’d forgotten. I’d put my wallet in my front pocket, and shoved my slightly greenish (very old) Dr Scholl’s leather arch supports in my back pocket. Felt like a pretty expensive wallet, I’d guess. But they looked pretty funky.

The cop nearly fell over laughing with me. We had the best time, trying to breathe from laughing so hysterically. A few other platform folks joined in, once they understood what I was showing them. The cop said, "I hope he gets ATHLETE'S PALMS, man!" and chuckled his way back down the platform.

[And no, I didn't end up with athlete's foot or toe fungus (thank goodness). Never lent my shoes again.]

A very fond memory of the last ‘crime spree’ in the NYC subways.

Enjoy!

Later: I should mention, a few years later, I went to work on 33rd Street early in the morning, to find a man machine-gunned in front of the old Post Office building. Quite the Wild West back then. This is why Guiliani is fondly remembered, after Koch and Dinkins. The downswing actually started after Dinkins took office, but Guiliani accelerated it.