Pete, who had been pacing up and down, looking out of his apartment window waiting for Danny, says the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"Because Danny doesn't joke, he wouldn't say something if it wasn't true," he says.

He bolted out of the apartment to the subway station, arriving as the police were carrying the baby away to be taken for a check-up at the hospital. After Danny had given his statement, the two of them left.

"I remember turning to Danny and saying to him on the sidewalk as the police car was driving away, 'You know, you're going to be connected to that baby in some way for the rest of your life,'" says Pete.

"Danny was like, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Well, eventually, this child is going to learn of the night he was found and he may want to find the person who discovered him. Maybe there's a way that we can find out where he ends up and send a birthday gift every year on this date?'"

The next day, news of the baby found on the subway was all over the headlines.

"Danny Stewart was the Good Samaritan that found the seven-pound baby," said one reporter, as Danny was interviewed for TV news.

"The baby is Hispanic with patches of brown hair on the top of his head," said another.

Danny wanted to find out how the baby was, and so went to the hospital where he had been taken, but was unable to get any news.

So Danny and Pete returned to their daily lives - Danny to his role as a social worker and Pete as a playwright and web designer.

But before too long Danny received an invitation from the Administration for Children's Services to attend a family court hearing, to testify how he had found the baby. When this took place, in December 2000, the judge asked Danny if he could stay for the entire hearing. He waited for the police to give their testimony, and then the judge addressed Danny again.

"She says, 'Mr Stewart, I want to let you know what's happening here, in instances where we have a baby that has been abandoned, we want to place them in pre-adoptive foster care as quickly as possible.'

"In my head, I'm thinking, 'Well that makes sense,'" says Danny. "And then the next thing out of her mouth was, 'Would you be interested in adopting this baby?'"

Danny looked around, all eyes were on him.

"I think most of the mouths dropped in the courtroom, including mine. I said, 'Yes, but I don't think it's that easy,' and the judge smiled and she said, 'Well, it can be.'"

Although the judge's question had come completely out of the blue, friends and acquaintances had already queried why Danny and Pete had not taken the baby boy home to take care of the night he was found. You didn't need to be a social worker, as Danny was, to realise that this wasn't how things worked.

The adoption process took six to nine months and involved background checks and parenting training.

"I had not had thoughts of adopting," says Danny, "but at the same time, I could not stop thinking that… I did feel connected, I felt like this was not even an opportunity, it was a gift, and how can you say no to this gift."