The baby found abandoned in a subway train station about 12 years ago was only a one-day-old baby with his umbilical cord still attached. Today, that one-day-old subway baby is the proud son of parents who have not only shown that love knows no boundaries but who have also turned their amazing experience into a screenplay named “Found.”
On March 1, 2013, the Daily Mail reported how the real-life story of “Found” began.
In August of 2000, social worker Danny Stewart was on his way home to his partner Peter Mercurio when he saw something that looked like a doll abandoned on a stairway in a New York subway station.
When Danny Stewart took a closer look at the “doll,” he realized that this was not a doll but a tiny baby whose umbilical cord was still attached.
Amazed and shocked, Danny instantly called 911 but since he had doubts whether the emergency service would even believe his discovery, he called his partner Peter Mercurio.
In his Feb. 28, 2013, New York Times article, Peter Mercurio wrote,
“Danny called me that day, frantic. ‘I found a baby!’ he shouted. ‘I called 911, but I don’t think they believed me. No one’s coming. I don’t want to leave the baby alone. Get down here and flag down a police car or something.’ By nature Danny is a remarkably calm person, so when I felt his heart pounding through the phone line, I knew I had to run. When I got to the A/C/E subway exit on Eighth Avenue, Danny was still there, waiting for help to arrive. The baby, who had been left on the ground in a corner behind the turnstiles, was light-brown skinned and quiet, probably about a day old, wrapped in an oversize black sweatshirt.”
After Peter joined Danny at the subway station, all three, Danny, Peter, and the tiny baby, waited together until the authorities took the baby into safety.
About five months later, in December of 2000, when Danny was in court to testify about how he had found the baby, the judge suddenly asked him, “Would you be interested in adopting this baby?”
Without a moment of hesitation and overjoyed, Danny said yes.
Peter, who was “initially furious” that he had not been consulted about the additional third member in the relationship, quickly went from fury to fascination and when Danny and Peter held “their baby” they felt that it had been destiny that brought them together. Within 36 hours, their life together officially began.
Peter wrote, “'With the baby's eyes staring up at me, and all the innocence and hope he represented, I, like Danny, was completely hooked.”
Not knowing that destiny still had another surprise for them, Danny and Peter raised their “subway baby” to be the kind of son that every parent can only wish for.
Growing up with an understanding that love can be unconditional and that love can reach beyond blood or gender boundaries, 11-year-old Kevin, the found subway baby, suggested that the very same judge who had given him his parents would now give his two fathers to each other in matrimony after gay marriage was legalized in New York.
“When they walked in to the court room, Kevin held out his hand to greet the woman who had given him his parents - but she insisted on hugging him instead.”
After reading Peter Mercurio’s screenplay or watching the teaser for the film “Found,” many more people will join the judge in not just hugging the subway baby Kevin but also his parents Peter and Danny.
“A quintessential New York story, FOUND is a screenplay that chronicles the unbelievable series of events that took place after that chance encounter and follows the miraculous journey of becoming a family.”
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