Abandoned on a door step in the dead of night, these are the desperate notes pinned to babies by poor and often unmarried mothers, pleading for someone to care for their child. The heartbreaking letters became part of records at the New York Foundling Asylum in the mid-19th century. In October 1869, a group of nuns renovated a brownstone at 17 East 12th Street in Manhattan into the Foundling Asylum