A Sceni-Cruiser Greyhound bus was cruising up the avenue with a young boy at the wheel and another boy seated behind him. Neither wore Greyhound grey. Spotted by two cops at Madison and 116th – Detective Gilberti leaned out of the police car window and ordered the bus driver to pull over. Instead the boy stepped on the gas and steered the bus into 116th street, heading toward Fifth Avenue. The police chased him. The bus speeded down Fifth Avenue and continued into Central Park, with the police car in hot pursuit. Traveling wildly around turns at a speed of about 50 miles an hour, the bus emerged at 97th Street and went over to Amsterdam Avenue, with the police car still behind it. The chase continued uptown on Amsterdam, with pedestrians running to safety and motorists pulling over to curbs to avoid being hit. At 130th Street the bus turned left and sped onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. As it headed north on a parkway that only carries automobile traffic, Sgt Frank Krzyick commandeered a Sanitation Department garbage truck and used it to block northbound traffic at about 177th Street.
The boys, both 14 years old, were captured there. It was reported that the bus had been stolen by the boys from a Greyhound maintenance lot at 40th Street and 11th Avenue. One of the boys was said by the police to have escaped recently from the Manhattan State Hospital, a state mental institution. “He handled the bus like a pro,” said Officer Devlin later.
“We had no idea when it was stolen and didn’t know it was taken until the police apprehended the young men,” the spokesmen said. A guard is posted at the gate of the lot where the bus was parked, the spokesman said, but he apparently didn’t realize an unauthorized driver was at the wheel. “Obviously the guard would have reported it if he had seen it,” the spokesman said.
Excerpt from Emanuel Perlmutter March 3, 1977 New York Times
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