STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A Christmas sign preaching goodwill toward men that was maliciously tossed down a Staten Island storm drain has made its way home, thanks to a vigilant family, a post on SILive.com and a city worker with a knack for sewer rescues.
The “Keep Christ in Christmas” sign vanished from outside the Oakwood home of Antoinette Mirando on New Year’s Eve.
Security footage from about 1 p.m. on Dec. 31 shows an individual with gray hair wearing a long green-gray winter coat approaching the residence at the corner of Peter Avenue and Hylan Boulevard, lifting the sign near the front door and walking off toward Hylan Boulevard.
Mirando’s son, Salvatore, 29, received a doorbell alert and arrived about five minutes later to find the decoration missing. Video from a camera near the entrance captured the theft, including the individual briefly disappearing behind shrubbery after crossing the street.
He searched the surrounding area and soon discovered where the sign had gone.
“I went to the sewer to look for the metal, and then I looked down and saw the sign and the metal were both in the sewer,” he said. They were lodged inside and he was unable to retrieve them on his own.
But what began as a disheartening end to the holiday season soon took a positive turn.
A city Department of Environmental Protection worker arrived at the Mirando about half an hour after an Advance/SILive.com story about the theft was published online Thursday morning.
Antoinette Mirando, of Oakwood, holds up her cherished Christmas sign alongside DEP employee Garret Mosley, “the catch basin cleaning king,” who recovered it from a nearby storm drain.(Courtesy of DEP)
The worker, Garret Mosley, carefully removed a nearby grate — maneuvering around a parked car — and pulled the sign from the drain without damaging it.
Mosley, a 37-year veteran of the DEP’s Sewer Maintenance Division on Staten Island, is no stranger to unusual recoveries beneath city streets.
He earned the nickname “catch basin cleaning king” this past summer after winning the agency’s fourth annual Interborough Catch Basin Mania Cleaning Competition at the Queens Repair Training Center.
“A Grinch may have swiped the sign and tossed it down the storm drain, but DEP was happy to help out and return the sign, which holds special meaning for its owner,” a DEP spokesperson said in a statement to Advance/SILive.com.
For the Mirando family, the recovery meant more than reclaiming a holiday decoration. Salvatore Mirando said the sign was purchased a decade ago by his father, Michael, who died this past May, and had been displayed by him every Christmas. This was family’s first holiday season without him.
“So that was another layer added on top of the heartbreak — not just someone trespassing on the property, but that, specifically,” he said.
The family traditionally keeps its decorations up until the Feast of the Epiphany, “Little Christmas,” on Jan. 6. But by the day before the sign was recovered on Thursday, the rest had already been taken down.
Salvatore Mirando recalled telling his mother he couldn’t believe the sign wouldn’t be placed back in the attic, where it is usually stored on top of other boxes for easy access.
The theft appeared deliberate. A statue of a saint positioned next to the sign was left untouched.
“It was such a random act of malicious intent,” he said.
Antoinette Mirando credited social media and simple kindness for the sign’s return.
“It really was a testament to the power of social media,” she said. “When the DEP guys showed up, they said they had seen it online and really wanted to help. The fact that people just stepped up out of the kindness of their hearts was the best part.”
Her son called getting the sign back “the best gift of all time.”
“I really do consider him a hero,” Antoinette Mirando said of Mosley. “I just wasn’t expecting it at all.”