Subway Panhandler? Share Your Story Here

With the majority of Sheepshead Bay’s employed residents heading to work on public transit, panhandlers and “subway bums” are familiar faces ’round these parts. Heck, at this point, it’s like they’re friends and family – though for some it’s like the in-laws you never want to see because they always want something.

They ride the same trains day in, day out – and so do we. Yeah, you might think they’d switch it up once in a while to get a new audience – and some new sympathy – but, hey, they must be having some success. Still, we wonder, who are these people?

That’s what we were thinking when Bites reader Kon wrote the following to us:

I think it would be interesting to start a thread about subway bums who ride on the Q train, and ask for money frequently. There are some that many of us regular Q train rides from Sheepshead Bay, probably have encountered on multiple occasions. For example, I once in a while encounter Daryl “EARLYBIRD” Johnson, and I’ve been seeing him on the Q for months now. He says he is homeless, but he somehow had a MP3 player, and new clean clothing each time.

Kon’s right. We know these guys. We’ve got stories about them. So let’s share. Let’s describe these characters, and our experiences about them, so they too are remembered for posterity.

So, got a story about a local panhandler? Share it below. Oh, and if you’ve got a photo, send it to me so I can add it to this post.