To Catch a Thief

When I travel with my childhood friends, some incident will occur that we’ll mull over for the rest of the trip. On a recent tour of northern Italy, it could have been seeing St. Anthony’s larynx on display in Padua. Or fibbing to our guides that balsamic vinegar tastes better in Modena and Bolognese sauce tastes better in Bologna. Surprisingly, the subject we discussed throughout the Emilia-Romagna region was an event taking place back in New York.

Someone was stealing my neighbors’ newspapers. 

While most shareholders in my Lower Manhattan co-op consume news online, a few still opt for the hard-copy delivery that occurs before dawn to the unlocked vestibule of our non-doorman building. The outlier is my husband, who walks three blocks to the corner deli every morning to pick up the paper and a corn muffin. 

For more than a week, that handful of print readers generated yards of outraged emails. While each cc’d the entire shareholder list, no one else from the co-op chimed in. However, my travel companions were riveted. Every ping of my cellphone brought new questions. “Why do your neighbors expect that newspapers dropped off where they can easily be stolen will not get stolen?” Because of magical thinking. We’re all guilty of assuming a degree of comfort and security that our building and our current maintenance fee cannot deliver. 

In my building, we are long on suggestions but short on action. Even when faced with potential danger, such as spotting a suspicious person camped in the unlocked vestibule or seeing a troubled neighbor walking in the hallway naked, calling 911 is a last resort. Why? “I’d rather not get the police involved” is a common reply. “Can’t you [board member or kind neighbor] do something?” 

This time, the board didn’t take the bait. Wisely, it stayed focused on the deadline to refinance our mortgage and on negotiating with unreasonable neighbors to accommodate our mandatory Facade Inspection and Safety Program repairs. 

When the email group realized they were flying solo, one quixotic member asked, “Do you think the NYPD would come here to take a report?” Even if our area wasn’t already experiencing an uptick in petit larceny and burglary, the odds were less than zero that police would make a house call for five missing newspapers. The one solution that would work — buying the newspaper at the corner deli — apparently was unthinkable. As one email writer dramatically put it, “We may have entered the realm of hopeless.” 

Despair led to enlisting our super in the battle. One email suggested he review the front-door camera recordings to “catch the thief doing his nasty business.” Across the ocean, my friends were rooting for the super, hoping he’d say no and tell the writer to come down and sift through the footage.

I said that wouldn’t happen. And it didn’t. Responsive as always, he came up from the basement and captured a blurry image of someone standing outside the building during the pre-dawn hours. My friends passed around my phone. “Looks like a sad young woman,” one said. “Maybe even a girl?” “Poor thing,” said another. “She must be desperate.” In Italy, we read (online) that since the summer of 2020, stealing newspapers in New York City to resell for cash has become common. “People are desperate,” the article said.

While no one supported the idea of theft as a solution to poverty, the emails had taken on a Les Miserables vibe. In the Victor Hugo story, Jean Valjean is chased relentlessly by Inspector Javert for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s children. Ironically, when I moved into the building, when the area had more loading docks and working warehouses than residents, long before the area’s current rank as one of the wealthiest in the city, I had the newspaper delivered — even on Sundays — and it was never stolen. 

As we packed to head back to our respective states, my friends asked me to send them updates. My plan was to go home and ignore the issue. But when I rolled my suitcase toward the front door of my building, I was greeted with the image of that young person taped to the unlocked vestibule door. Written in thick black marker was the warning, “NEWSPAPER THIEF BEWARE!”

In the weeks since, the newspapers have made it to the mailroom more often than not. Soon I’ll leave on another trip abroad, this time with friends who used to live in the building. At least now if the email chain cranks up again, I won’t have to explain or discuss. 

They’ll understand.