Con Ed Worker Finds Lost Wallet on UWS and Tracks Down Its Owner
John Marsch, a Con Ed worker, found a wallet and eventually reached the owner’s son in Florida, who connected him to his dad who had lost the wallet while having brunch on the UWS.
| 24 Jan 2024 | 07:11
Con Ed employee John Marsch (left) is photographer with Ted Frese in Manhattan on January 18, 2024. March recently assisted Frese with recovering a wallet that was lost outside an UWS restaurant. (
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You ever lose your wallet? Most of us have. Well, on Sunday December 17, 2023, Ted Frese did too—twice! The first time wasn’t a big deal. Frese, a New York City native and retired IT professional and living in Connecticut, explains:
“I was having [brunch] with my girlfriend at the French Roast at 85th and Broadway and as I was leaving, someone came up to my girlfriend and she came up to me.
“My wallet had fallen out of my pocket, it was just a small little wallet, and I felt so much better now, it was good. My girlfriend had to go on her way, and I had to go do something else.
“So, I crossed the street, and I was fumbling with my wallet because I had a set of keys with a lot of keys on it a shallow pocket and I was fixing it so it would stay fine.”
” Whew! That was a relief.
But Ted’s Upper West Side adventure wasn’t over.
“I went to Zabar’s at Broadway and 80th to get something and realized I didn’t have any money to pay for it. So, I went back outside and looked for my wallet and couldn’t find it.”
“Luckily, I had my transit card in a separate area and I was able to get home and cancel all my cards and get a new driver’s license and everything.”
By accident or design, Fun City had claimed another victim and, while he went home Zabar-less, at least Frese was otherwise alright. In time, the corporate and governmental record keepers would make him whole again.
More quickly than that could be effected, however, Frese got a surprise. It was a text from a guy named John Marsch, a mechanic in the Transmission Operations department of Con Edison.
“He said he found the wallet,” explained Frese, “and he was going to send it to me.”
Marsch himself picks up the story here.
“Me and my partner, we both work for Con Edison. We were doing emergency work on Broadway and West 85th Street and on our break, we went to get some food, and, on the walk, we found a small brown wallet on the ground. There was driver’s license, credit cards, cash, a couple club membership cards.
Since it was right before Christmas, Marsch said, “we knew we had to get the wallet back to him as soon as possible.
They first pulled out a club membership, called the number and left their names but the call was not returned. “After a day or two, when they didn’t call, we decided to Google his name and find someone with same last name, it was a guy living in Florida, which turns out to be his son and he gave us Ted’s number and we called him. Ted confirmed everything that was in the wallet, and we went straight to the UPS store and mailed it.
Then, after a couple days, he still hasn’t received the wallet and I looked at the tracking and it ended up in California. So, it got lost in the mail. Ted was in Florida at the time, with his son and grandson. Finally, the wallet made it to back to Ted.”
Interjected Ted: “May I say the wallet had the money in it, all the cards, everything.”
“All the items returned,” echoed John.
Ted continued: “As John was saying, I had gone to see my son, my daughter-in-law in and granddaughter in Florida for Christmas, so I didn’t get it until I came back which was the 27th.
“And as I said, everything was intact. I was very pleased that people would take the time to find the owner because it was a challenge to do that. I thought that was very unusual so I said to John, what can I do? I’d like to thank you in some way.”
“John said you can write a nice letter to my boss. Isn’t that right, John?”
Replied Marsch: “That’s right.”