A DOZEN GOOD EGGS
Rail great workers are honored Save riders & take time to care
THEY’RE THE intrepid city transit workers who go the extra mile.
A dozen deeply deserving Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees were honored Tuesday as Daily News Hometown Heroes of Transit at the fourth annual awards ceremony.
The unsung and often unseen honorees were feted for keeping the nation’s busiest mass transit system up and running no matter what. Sometimes they prevent tragedies. Other times they simply remind us there are good people in the city.
“The transit system is such a vital part of our everyday lives, sometimes we take it for granted,” said Daily News Editor-In-Chief Jim Rich.
“It’s sort of like walking into a room and flipping on a light switch: You never really stop to think about how that switch works until it doesn’t.”
Among the winners was MTA lost-and-found guru Chean Lee, 45, who has reunited countless straphangers with their missing items since 2008.
The modest worker invited his superiors to stand up and join him after accepting his award at the ceremony in the historic Edison Ballroom in Times Square.
“I don’t think I deserve this award or this honor today,” said the Forest Hills, Queens, resident. “I didn’t pull anybody from a fire or save a life. But I will take this award . . . on behalf of the whole (Lost Property Unit).”
Another honoree was MTA station agent Ralph Johnson, whose heroic efforts on Labor Day saved the life of a woman who fell onto the tracks of the Franklin Ave. stop during the West Indian American Day Parade in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
NBC News reporter David Ushery recounted the selfless courage of Johnson, 63, who was working an overtime shift that day — and arrived at the station 30 minutes early to get the lay of the land.
“Ralph could hear the train coming, it’s not far,” recounted Ushery. “He jumps down in the middle of the tracks. He has few options, ’cause there’s not a lot of time.
“He literally starts doing jumping jacks in the middle of the track to get the motorman’s attention. The motorman pulls up with about 20 yards to spare.”
Staten Island mechanics Gregory Harper and David Espana were cited for coming
to the rescue of a bicyclist who tumbled onto a train trackbed.
Espana, 35, of Queens, jumped off the platform to the tracks, keeping the woozy man away from the electrified third rail until the power was switched off.
“We feel like we’re just doing our job, but it’s nice to be recognized,” Espana said.
Harper managed to flag down the motorman of an oncoming train to stop outside the Old Town station of the Staten Island Railway.
“It’s good to be honored,” said Harper. “It’s a testament to the training that we get.”
The other MTA workers extolled at the breakfast were station agent Richard Singleton, maintenance supervisor Trelane Spencer, bus operator Timothy Fairless, staff analyst Giuseppina Foglia, structure maintainer Joe Landro, superintendent Barbara Kenny, train conductor Anthony Monserrate and station cleaner Aishah Smith.
“I’m hoping to set the tone that other coworkers will not be afraid to step in and just be human,” said Smith, honored for coming to the aid of a man suffering a violent seizure in the City Hall station.
WPIX-TV anchor Brenda Blackmon gushed over winner Kenny, who helped locate an older man after he went missing from a nursing home.
“I thought I would break down in tears because it’s so wonderful to see a modern day hero,” she said. “Someone who gets a gut feeling and acts on it, rather than saying, ‘Ah, no big deal.’
“Instead she acted . . . and she cared enough to make a difference.”
The judges this year included Rich, along with Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez and the paper’s transit reporter Dan Rivoli; NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan and reporter Cheryl Wills; Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand; MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast; and Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen.
The panel selected the winners from scores of nominees, dedicated employees who put their own lives on the line and made life easier for the 6 million daily riders.
“They all deserve to be acknowledged in some way,” Rich said of the MTA’s 76,000 employees. “And it is my great pleasure to help honor just a few of them.”