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Three days a week, I work from the press room at One Police Plaza, the imposing, brown-brick mother ship of the New York Police Department in Lower Manhattan.
As a reporter who covers the Police Department for the Metro desk of The New York Times, I have visited many parts of the building — the second-floor space where news conferences are held; the fourth-floor trial room for departmental hearings; and the 13th-floor conference area, where journalists meet with high-ranking officials to discuss ongoing cases.
But I had never been to the basement.
Last fall, I visited One Police Plaza to discuss an article with Sgt. Edward Riley, who works for the office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, the communications arm of the Police Department. As we walked down the steps to the subterranean floor, I noticed a pair of sliding steel doors that looked like something you might see at a military base.
I asked Sergeant Riley what was behind them. He said it was the entrance to the office of the Manhattan Property Clerk, where thousands of pieces of evidence are stored. Lost possessions that have been turned into the police are also kept there, he said, as well as items recovered from ground zero after Sept. 11.
There was also a vault containing confiscated guns, cash and drugs. At that moment, I imagined a film noir scene featuring a 1940s Swiss bank.
Sergeant Riley asked if I would be interested in writing about the basement. I said yes before he could finish his sentence, adding: “When can we go?”
I soon learned people cannot simply waltz into the property clerk’s office without an appointment. The sergeant would need the Police Department’s sign-off for me to visit, and that could take time. Only those assigned to work there — officers and civilian employees entrusted to safeguard its highly-sensitive contents — can pass beyond its public access point. (This is with good reason. In the 1970s, an ex-narcotics detective and a mobster were linked to a heroin-smuggling scheme run out of the clerk’s former location in Little Italy. The thefts were connected to the so-called French Connection, and the men were indicted in 1974.)
I put in an official request to visit and then waited. Weeks passed; the winter holidays came and went. Then, last month, Sergeant Riley sent me a message. My request had been approved.
On Jan. 11, he took me, the photojournalist Lanna Apisukh and Ms. Apisukh’s photo assistant, Obed Obwoge, down to the basement of One Police Plaza. Sgt. Surabi Consuegra, a boss in the clerk’s office, and Charmain Carryl and Tricia Samuel-Williams, two police evidence and property specialists, met us at the entrance.
They walked us through the cavernous space, which reminded me of a library with its tall shelves and long hallways. They showed us where items get inspected and opened the vault to show us where firearms, narcotics and dollar bills are stored.
Along the way, we passed a shopping cart filled with binders. Ms. Carryl said that there were 298 of them, each containing hundreds of invoices for items taken in by the clerk’s office. I learned that the office had received 60,733 items last year alone.
Ms. Apisukh took photo after photo as I asked questions: What is the temperature in the room that holds the drugs? What is the weirdest thing you have seen come through here? How long has this sad-looking plush dog been in the basement? Does it have a name? (He does not, Ms. Carryl told me. I privately called him Rover.)
The women smiled at our enthusiasm. “We were like that when we first got here, too,” Ms. Samuel-Williams said. “Every aspect of this job is interesting, especially the first time you are experiencing it.”
As I looked around at the objects on the shelves, I considered their significance. I recalled how, in December 2022, a three-alarm fire at a Police Department warehouse in Brooklyn destroyed troves of evidence in storage. As a result, some crimes will never be solved.
I thought more about this later that evening. What if items I had seen in the basement — a child’s toy, a beloved book, an engagement ring — were to be consumed by a flood or flames? It made me sad to think that their owners would never have the chance to find them, as slim a chance as that may be.
Days later, I was back at The Times’s newsroom in Manhattan to meet with my editor, Steve Merelman, about the article. He told me he is at constant war with the clutter in his own basement. The Police Department, he observed, is fighting the same battle.
A month after my visit, my article, a tour of the basement and its various objects, was published online. That evening, I scrolled through the comments section to see whether the piece had resonated with readers.
One response stood out to me.
“I am reasonably certain someone will recognize that plush dog,” the reader said. “I am hoping a beloved dog is reunited with a kid. I lost a favorite years ago and still think about it sometimes, like today.”
