Earlier this month, a curious visitor took up residence right in the middle of the uptown track of the 1 line at West 18th Street in Manhattan.

Hardy as a cockroach and oranger than an orangutan was one dust-covered basketball, which first made its appearance on the southern end of the station sometime around March 1 and sat in the center of the track, barely moving at all, until track workers apparently extracted it some three weeks later.

If one considers that a subway arrived and departed 229 times a day during the week and 140 to 150 times a day over the weekend, this means that the ball managed to narrowly escape being run over roughly 4,300 times during the course of its subterranean sojourn.

Few survivalists can claim this track record. Almost as remarkable was how most riders seemed not to notice it.