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# Remember When Teens Stole A Penguin From Coney Island Aquarium?
- URL: https://bklyner.com/remember-teens-stole-penguin-coney-island-aquarium-bensonhurst/
- Published: 2014-06-24T13:33:27.000Z
- Updated: 2015-09-18T02:12:39.000Z
- Author: Ned Berke
- Tags: aquariums, new york historical society, #API-Imported

Ah, the heady days of the 1960s. I’m told [if you remember it, you weren’t there](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grace%5FSlick?ref=bklyner.com#Disputed).

So we’ll forgive you if you forgot all about that time – May 9, 1965 – when a bunch of teenagers swiped a penguin from the New York Aquarium in Coney Island.

Why would they steal a penguin, you ask? Because, man, why not?

The story goes like this: an MTA detective was on the subway at Stillwell Avenue, minding everybody’s business like he ought to. He spots a group of teens hop on his subway car carrying a cardboard box. The kids leave, but leave the box behind.

Then the box moves.

Figuring it’s a seagull – because, man, why not? – he goes to grab the box to take it outside and release it. Only after getting bit on the thumb does *this detective* decide to get a little more inquisitive, and takes a look inside the container.

Bam, penguin.

He called up the aquarium and they confirmed they were a penguin down, and it was returned safely.

Oh, yeah, then it happened again in 1967.

I learned all this after stumbling across the New York Historical Society video above, first released in 2012.