A woman who was found in a phone booth on Columbus Avenue and 88th street in 1965 when she was just two days old is now looking to find her birth mother. The woman, who does not wish to be identified, recently put signs up in stores near the intersection hoping that someone with information about the situation would contact her, said Pamela Slaton, a private investigator who is working with the family.
“She was just found in the phone booth and we don’t know more beyond that. We don’t know anything about the birth family.”
The sign says that she would be there on July 15 at 6:30 p.m., but the woman did not show up because of the weather.
Slaton told us that the baby was found by a passerby and delivered to the police, who put her in foster care. She was adopted by a New York family but throughout her life would continue to return to that corner on her birthday, hoping to find her mother there. After she had kids, she stopped going. But just recently she decided to resume the search, Slaton said.
“It’s taken her a long time to do this,” Slaton said. “There’s a lot of emotions. She wants to accomplish this.”
The search is apparently being recorded by TV cameras and is expected to be broadcast at some point, Slaton said, though she declined to give details.
If you know anything, reach out to Slaton, whose phone number is 609-702-7531.
Thanks to Kenneth for the photo.
Weird that the Times online archive from 1965 doesn’t include an article about the abandonment (that I can find.)
Try the Historical Newspaper Index (not NYT) via NYPL or an academic institution.
Wow, English teachers: Here’s your TEACHABLE MOMENT:
Aim: To have students understand the subtle nuances posed by a semi-colon.
Procedure: Teacher will write on board:
1. WOMAN LEFT IN 88TH STREET PHONE BOOTH AS A BABY SEEKS HER BIRTH MOTHER
2. WOMAN LEFT IN 88TH STREET PHONE BOOTH; AS A BABY SEEKS HER BIRTH MOTHER
Elicit from class the differences in meaning with and without semi-colon.
Be prepared for some much-deserved silliness
Follow up:
Students will write and perform a skit involving:
(a) the dilemma of a woman being left in a phone booth, and/or
b) the difficulties a baby might have in locating its birth mother
Extra Credit:
Students will create and act-out skits based on other marks of punctuation, such as an exclamat!on po!nt, etc.
Would an equivalent example, about commas, be the following?
Let’s eat, Grandma!
Let’s eat Grandma!
A touching story, I wish her luck in her search. The insensitive jerk of an English teacher who made the comment above needs to get a life.
Living life as a pedantic putz must get lonely.