Boy Lived in NYC Subway for 11 Days

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published November 25, 2009 and can be found here.

Francisco Hernandez Jr., who has Asperger's, a developmental disorder that affects the ability to socialize and communicate, disappeared on October 15, after he thought he was in trouble at school, according to his mother, Marsiela Garcia of Brooklyn. [source: CNN]

Until now I've tried to keep the subway stories I post limited to those out of the abandoned Rochester Subway. But recently there have been a rash of great stories from the underground I've just had to share. There was the drunken lady who fell onto the tracks in the Boston Subway. Then the unfortunate murder on the "D" train in Manhattan. And here's another one. We've all heard stories of people living in New York's subway tunnels. And you might immediately conjure up an image in your head of what such a person would look like. But how about a mild mannered 13 year old boy? Watch the video...

Francisco Hernandez Jr., of Brooklyn, entered the subway on October 15 with nothing but his backpack, iPhone, 10 dollars, and a MetroCard. He would not see the light of day again for 11 days, when a NYC police officer recognized him from a missing person poster and brought him home to his mother, Marsiela Garcia.

Here's a look at the New York City Subway map. Francisco Hernandez Jr. (13) spent 11 days riding random trains all over the system. I'm so jealous.

It turns out the boy, who has Asperger's, a developmental disorder that affects the ability to socialize and communicate, was hiding because he thought he was in trouble after an incident at school. He took the battery out of his phone and lived on snacks and water from subway newsstands while riding random subway trains around Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. [ Read the story on CNN ]

I have a feeling this won't be the last time Francisco takes a subway vacation. His mother told reporters her son has disappeared into the subway before. For whatever reason, she said, he just feels comfortable in the subway. It's strange but I know how he feels.

Chris Gemignani