The world was stunned when we adopted a baby we found on the subway. But it’s what he said about it years later that terrified us

When Peter Mercurio wrote his new book, ‘There: We Found our Family In A New York City Subway Station,’ he sought the approval of just one person.

He wanted his son, Kevin, to give his honest opinion – after all, the now 24-year-old is the central character, without whom there would be no story.

Twenty five years ago, Mercurio’s husband, Danny Stewart, found Kevin as a newborn lying on the floor of the 14th Street and 8th Avenue subway station in a corner near the turnstiles. He was wrapped in a black sweatshirt. The umbilical cord was still attached to his stomach.

In a remarkable turn of events the couple adopted the baby after no one came forward to claim him.

But Mercurio need not have worried about Kevin’s reaction to his new book. Within hours of sending Kevin an advanced copy, he received a text saying the young man devoured it in one sitting. 

‘Well, it didn’t take me long to read,’ the message said. ‘I picked it up, and I am only now putting it down on my favorite bookshelf.’

He went on, ‘I’m so proud of you for putting it together and tremendously grateful that you documented everything in the way that you did.’

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Mercurio admits that Kevin’s words moved him to tears.

‘I thought, “I don’t care what anybody else thinks about the book, even if they say how wonderful it is,”’ he says. ‘My son just told me he was proud.’

The feeling is mutual. Mercurio, 59, and Stewart, 56, are in awe of the young man that entered their lives in the most extraordinary of circumstances nearly 25 years ago.

In a charming tale of love at first sight – which was recently made into an animated short film, ‘18 Months,’ to promote foster care and adoption – Stewart knew Kevin was meant for them from the moment he spotted the helpless child.

Stewart still can’t believe the serendipity of it all – he could so easily have caught an earlier or later train, or left by another exit.

Stewart was on the local C line to 14th Street and 8th Avenue. He was feeling frustrated after just missing the express train from his home in Morningside Heights. He might never have come across Kevin if he’d been on time for his dinner date with Mercurio.

Recalling the fateful night of Aug. 15, 2000, Stewart tells the Daily Mail that he only saw the baby because he happened to glance backwards as he mounted the stairs.

‘I thought the bundle was a doll and somebody must have left it there by mistake,’ he says. ‘But then I noticed the tiny legs move.”

He rushed down the steps and loosened the folds of the sweatshirt to caress his head. ‘I could tell he was brand new because the umbilical cord looked like it had just been cut,’ he says.

‘I knew better than to pick him up because I didn’t want to injure him in any way or tamper with evidence because I knew it was likely to be a crime scene.’

Stewart, a social worker by profession, made sure the infant was breathing before dashing above ground where, in the age before everybody had cellphones, he had to dial 911 from a nearby pay phone.

Then, as he waited for the police to arrive, he frantically stuffed another quarter into the slot to call Mercurio who was waiting for him in his Chelsea apartment.

‘Danny is a very calm, relaxed person, so it alarmed me to hear him rushing his words in a state of panic,’ says Mercurio, taking up the tale. He managed to decipher from the conversation that Stewart had somehow found a baby in the subway. Then he grabbed his shoes and ran to the station to help.

He got there as two officers emerged from the steps holding Kevin. ‘Danny was standing there, looking numb,’ he says. ‘We were witnesses to this tiny baby rising from below.’

The moment has stayed with him forever. ‘I’ll never forget the chill that went up and down my spine,’ he adds.

Stewart, who was interviewed by major news outlets about his miracle discovery at the time, told reporters that the child was ‘peaceful, calm and docile.’

But most of all, he said, he was struck by the boy’s striking brown eyes that seemed to absorb the busy streets of New York City with intense curiosity.

‘We knew there was something truly special about this kid,’ he says.

The baby was taken to the since demolished St. Vincent’s Hospital a few blocks away. Unable to stop thinking about him, Stewart stopped by the following morning.

He approached the information desk to inquire about the foundling, but was told he couldn’t visit. ‘They said, “Only family are allowed,”’ Stewart says. ‘And I replied “Well, he doesn’t have any family, and I was the one that found him.”’

Still, they said no. The then 33-year-old eventually found out through a fellow social worker that the child was healthy. He was later informed that he’d been picked up by his grandmother.

However, this turned out to be incorrect. No one had come forward, and 12 weeks later, Stewart was called to Manhattan Family Court to prove the baby’s abandonment so the system could legally terminate the biological parental rights and the child could be formally adopted.

Nobody had come forward to claim Kevin despite the widespread publicity about the case. Police conducted a full investigation, but failed to find any leads.

Stewart expected the hearing to be just a formality. But a question by the judge at the end of the meeting left him blindsided. ‘Mr. Stewart,’ she said. ‘Would you be interested in adopting this baby?’

It turned out there was a pilot program in New York City to expedite fostering and adoption. The judge wanted to place Kevin in a semi-permanent or permanent home as soon as possible.

Stewart’s immediate thought was, ‘Why us?’ Then, after a while, he thought, ‘Why not us?’ He rushed home to tell Mercurio, then 30, who admits he was somewhat hesitant.

The pair had discussed starting a family before, even beginning to put money aside for the purpose. However, they decided to wait until they entered into their 40s when they were likely to be more settled.

‘I was in a one-bedroom apartment with a partition in the living room for my roommate,’ Mercurio recalls. ‘We thought, “Let’s revisit this at a later date.”’

But Kevin wasn’t in a position to wait until they made up their minds.

The men were assigned a social worker who took them to visit the infant in his temporary foster home. They held him for the first time and were consumed by love. ‘It just felt as if he had always been ours,’ Mercurio says.

Kevin was initially only meant to stay with them over the Christmas holidays, but he never left. His fathers did a crash course in diaper changing and bottle feeding and became naturals. Before long, it was as if they had never lived any other way.

At first, the dads were concerned about possible prejudice against them as a same-sex couple adopting a young child. But their friends, family and neighbors couldn’t have been more delighted for them. The only sour note was a homophobic letter from an anonymous stranger who claimed they were unsuitable parents.

‘It was a one-off,’ Mercurio says. ‘Everyone else was supportive.’

The family thrived as Kevin – who was named after Mercurio’s older brother who died at birth – went to kindergarten and then grade school. They never kept the subway story from their son because they didn’t want it to be a secret or something to be ashamed of.

Mercurio, now a playwright, created a children’s book outlining what had happened in simple terms. Nearly every night for a year, Kevin read his dad’s tender story about a little boy who was found in the subway. He had just turned 4 years old when he asked Mercurio, ‘Is that me, Poppa?’

He read the same book aloud to his peers in second grade. Stewart says they received a call the next day from the parents of a girl in his class who was also adopted. ‘They said she’d had a hard time dealing with it, but the story had helped reassure her that she wasn’t alone,’ he explains.

Referring to the possibility of Kevin’s birth parents showing up, they say they ‘held their breath’ until the adoption was finalized when Kevin was 2. Around the age of 8, the child asked if they could put up posters on the subway, appealing for his biological mother to come forward.

‘We said it wasn’t the best idea, because of a lot of women might claim to be his mom,’ Stewart, says. ‘But Kevin said, “I don’t want to live with her Daddy, I just want to see what she looks like.”’

Mercurio fights back tears, describing Kevin as a cherished child and teen. At 6 ft 3 in tall, he has towered over his dads since the age of 14. ‘I got his hand-me-down clothes and shoes that were almost brand new because he grew so quickly,’ Mercurio says.

Kevin never lost the curiosity he so clearly showed when his parents first set eyes on him. ‘He observed things and figured things out from the littlest age,’ Mercurio says, adding that Kevin taught himself how to play the guitar and piano, juggle and do magic tricks.

The boy excelled both in sports – his favorite sport is Ultimate frisbee – and academics. The kids at his high school voted him the equivalent of valedictorian when they graduated in 2018.

After that, he attended Swarthmore College near Philadelphia. Kevin earned his degree in mathematics and computer science, and now works at a creative agency building websites in Pittsburgh.

‘It’s beyond words to describe our joy and overwhelming pride in his accomplishments and see how far he has come,’ Stewart says.

Mercurio, who married Stewart in 2012 – a year after same-sex marriage was legalized in New York – feels the same way. ‘He’s a really strong, confident, self-motivating, smart, sensitive, compassionate human being,’ he says of his child.

As for Mercurio’s book, published by Ace Doe, and the animated film made by the non-profit foster and adoption organization Second Nurture, the dads hope to challenge preconceptions of how families are created.

‘Our family is anything but traditional,’ Stewart says. ‘And Kevin found us as much as we found him.’