The Mole People Surface Twice, a Bodega's AI Suggests $4.95 for a Soda, a $415,000 Cheerleading Scheme, and Three Subway Seats for $1,000

Vinnie clocks four fresh New York scenes from the week of October 5–11, 2026: the sewer-diving "mole people" surface twice in a single week, a Brooklyn bodega gets an AI price suggestion on a bottle of soda, a school worker's cheerleading habit costs a public school $415,000, and four thousand New Yorkers queue overnight to buy pieces of the subway.

Sunday, just after 12:50 a.m., three men lifted the cover off a manhole at W. 141st St. near Amsterdam Ave. in Hamilton Heights and went down into the sewer system. One of them re-emerged and left in a silver car parked nearby; officers from the 30th Precinct, called to 502 West 141st St. just before 1 a.m., found no one. 12

Two days earlier, shortly after 2 a.m. on Friday, October 9, a witness saw five people come up out of a manhole on E. 82nd St. near East End Ave. on the Upper East Side, and they took off in a truck. 34 Video shared on social media appears to show NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers using a magnet to drag two shovels the men left behind back up out of the hole. Police say the men are scavengers hunting valuables and scrap metal flushed into the drains after storms. One law-enforcement source told amNewYork that some of what they hunt was stolen and flushed with an AirTag attached, so the divers could track it through the pipes. 2

The corner store has a new advisor. Bodega AI is a point-of-sale system that pulls what other stores nearby charge and puts a suggested price in front of the merchant as he sets it, narrowing the comparison to a ZIP code. At a Sunset Park deli, a bottle of Coca-Cola Zero was entered at $2.49 and the register suggested $4.95. 5 Charles Sepulveda, whose company Xtraspots distributes the system, says it "will never change itself." The man behind the counter says he works from the delivery receipt and what he paid per item — but asked whether another store might just take the higher number, he said, "I could see people taking advantage of it." 5 A City Council bill that would cap grocery price increases at one per item every 24 hours has been sitting in committee since June. 5

Abi Corbin, a former community associate at the East West School of International Studies — also known as P.S. 281 — on Colden Street in Flushing, pleaded guilty Wednesday to second-degree grand larceny. 6 From July 2021 through July 2024 she used the principal's login credentials and signature to authorize purchase orders for pom-poms and other cheer gear, all of it for Queens Campus Cheer, her own private company. The orders came to about $415,000. The scheme came apart in July 2024, when boxes of pom-poms and other equipment arrived at a school that has no cheerleading team. 6

The MTA's Memorabilia & Collectible Pop-Up Shop ran Thursday and Friday in a fenced lot in Gravesend, Brooklyn, under the elevated D train. Roughly 4,000 New Yorkers line up for it every year, and this year some started queuing the night before. 7 The stock is what crews salvage over the year: replaced station signs, poles, MetroCards, and the orange-and-yellow seats out of decommissioned R46 cars. A set of three used seats goes for $1,000; two new seats cost $900; two used ones cost $650. 7 Director Spike Lee came out and bought a 34 St–Penn Station sign. "I'm a collector," he said. Paul Dvoskin, who runs the sale for the MTA, put it plainly: "There's nothing more New York than the subway system; that's just what it is." 7