Baby Yoda
or
Sewer Alligator?
11
Myth? What myth?
Every New Yorker knows that our sewers harbor colossal alligators slumbering in their depths. Their jaws silently open as unsuspecting sewer rats swim blindly towards them. They say all you hear is a soft 'clop' and a muffled squeak... You might even glimpse the green gleam of their cold billionaire eyes before they close them again.
76
The gators are nothing - ya gotta see the river rats along the Hudson -- about the size of an adult Beaver, with long yellow teeth.
45
The gators are not the problem. The problem is CHUD!
(*Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers-- remember the movie from 1984?)
22
Alligators mainly lay around dozing.
Mama alligators are VERY protective however (they carry their babies in their mouths!) and so, like any other animal, avoid these if you can. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvjDcbLtU5I).
No, they don't attack humans for no reason. When they do attack prey, they grab them and roll under the water with the prey until it's drowned.....then lodge the prey underwater and go back to feed when they are hungry. No, they don't chase people for no reason and don't walk on their back legs.
Like any other animal, they should left alone and allowed to live their lives. (from a lifelong Floridian)
27
I'm gonna tell everyone that there ARE gators in the NYC sewers. Proof? I read an article about them in The New York Times.
31
Love the little alligator slowly rising from beneath the sewer cover, best graphics I've seen in a long time.
95
Normally I find the moving graphics in online NYTimes distracting, and thus irritating. But I adore the little black and white alligator that keeps crawling out of the manhole!
Well done NYTimes, for once I smiled.
86
I remember a funny radio drama that WBAI would play back in the early 1970's that I would listen to as drove a cab. It was all about the white albino alligators in the sewer and I think they sang the blues. Anyone else remember this?
Thank you so much for the wonderful and engaging read. Growing up in NYC this was one of my favorite urban myths. I've sent it out to all my friends.
19
Anyone remember the 'spraying for sewer lizards' warnings all around NYC in the late '90's??
Thanks for the great article!
7
In the 1950's Alligators were sold on the Midway of the Ringling Bros. Circus in the lower level of the oldMadison Sq. Garden. I was 6 years old and begged my Dad for one. He recounted to me the Sewer Stories as we played with them on the stand. There were turtles for sale as well. I came home with a turtle in a Cracker Jacks boy to the shock of my Mother. It lived for a few years. If a Spaulding Pinkie went down the sewer during a stick ball game it was considered a full loss. No one dared to attempt a retrieve..
18
How about the alligator that was discovered in the O'Hare Airport terminal building about a year ago.
6
I know the alligators were in there because Ralph Kramden told me and I know he wasn't telling me a lie because it was just one of Ralph's many entrepreneurial ventures so he could take his wife Trixie to Florida and retire. Ralph was selling the meat to restaurants in NY City. He was always hawking alligator meat with his classic refrain: "How sweet it is". It never panned out so Ralph took all the alligators to Florida and made his fortune there. The rest is history!
14
1932, Stalking the Shores..."Like Sir Richard Burton on Victoria Nyanza." I've read a rather thorough biography of Sir Richard Burton - I'm gonna say that news article from 1932 was over-embelishing by quite a large margin...fun story though!
1
I remember long ago reading a short story by Harlan Ellison, the science fiction writer, about a man who is upset when his pregnant girlfriend has an abortion and the fetus is flushed down the toilet. It was published nearly 50 years ago in a pornographic magazine, which proves that I really did read the stories. The man travels through the subterranean sewer system until he finds himself in a large chamber with a domed ceiling at the convergence of numerous large trunk pipes. There, he is confronted by dozens of half-formed fetus children who emerge from the feeder pipes riding white alligators and worship the man as their father god. Unfortunately, I returned the magazine to its owner and never saw it again, but years later I related the story to high school students when I was a substitute teacher in their English class. One girl said, "What was the name of that writer?" And she wrote it down: Harlan Ellison.
10
My wife pointed out that Norton, Ralph's neighbor, worked in the sewer. I told her I didn't want to point that out since I don't know who is Running Ralph's gator meat business and I didn't want to let out Ralph's secret for making gator meat as sweet as it is. No need to point out the secret partner. So don't tell anyone that Norton worked in the sewer. Somebody might figure out Ralph's trade secret. But he was always grateful to NY for helping him achieve his dream. How sweet it is.
6
I don’t understand the notion of a pet alligator.
25
George R.R. Martin's "Wild Cards" series has a were-alligator character who lives in the sewers when he changes.
5
This is a very fine article - as a former journalism Prof. verifies in a comment below - but I'm afraid it was classic NYT journalism where the VERDICT/"story line" came first, and everything in the article was basically in support of that.
I have seen alligators - as a kayaker - in the Gowanus Canal for several years now, and when I first brought my boat back in "in a tizzy," as it were, I was greeted with "Tell us something we don't know ... and haven't seen 1-100 times each of us." (The different numbers simply had to do with how long and how often the person had been kayaking there.) And yes, sometimes you see at least 2 generations out for a swim together!
I asked my fellow boaters if "the authorities" knew about it. "OH YES," they all agreed, but a succession of NY Mayors and Brooklyn Boro Presidents have ordered a cover-up.
FWIW, the largest one I've seen personally has been under 12 feet in length - I'm able to be somewhat precise, because there are times they swim alongside my kayak on the surface - Capt. Hook-style.
It's typical gallows humor, but the word is that "doing a rollover" - especially on a hot summer day - well, let's say that the consensus is that that's way more "high risk" than merely frolicking in or near a Superfund site.
And yes, I HAVE photographs, but there seems to be no way to attach or include them in these comments. I'm going "old school" and sending a "letter to the Editor." Maybe s/he will print them, so you can see for yourselves!
33
I love the animation!
12
Also in the 14th St station, in the pedestrian tunnel connecting 6th and 7th Avenues, there was a parade of albinos for a few years.
1
Uh-oh! I live in LA. Last summer i walked into my bathroom and found a green and white lizard in the sink. It had crawled up the drain. This lizard was approximately 12 inches long. Now, after reading this article, I realize I should have called animal control. However, I placed a dustpan in front of it, the lizard crawled onto the dustpan, and I released the lizard into the yard. Hopefully, the lizard enjoyed some freedom. (Was unable to determine type of lizard with internet search.) BTW the gif is a fun addition to the article.
15
This story is practically perfect journalism, and that alligator coming out of the manhole is one of the best graphics ever.
It's been decades since I taught budding journalists but this would have been worth one or two classes:
Practical, funny, brilliant use of morgue stories as background, part of chronology, and illustrations.
Great example of taking chronology beyond just a timeline.
Terrific headline. Compelling appeal to almost universal potential interest.
I can't remember whether it was Pulitzer or Orson Welles playing the Rosebud sled guy, but one of them said that myth-busting is one of journalism's most important missions.
The package was nicely edited as well...not all editors would allow the alligator manhole graphic. It shows the strength of restraint, in general or specific, which makes it pop out (sorry) from the whole publication and the page.
Thanks again, and forgive the gush.
77
I live in alligator country, been around them all my life. They can be scary, but rarely dangerous. Of the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of gators in the Okefenokee Swamp, never has there been a recorded attack on a human there. I lived in New York for a year, and when people found out where I was from, the most frequently asked question was: "Are there alligators where you live?" Seems you Yankees have an obsession with alligators.
Nice article.
26
@willlegarre
I remember meeting a guy from Maryland decades ago, who, when I told him I was from Atlanta, Georgia, said, "Oh, you've got alligators down there." I told him he'd have to go way down south in Georgia to find them.
I was in a string band that played Old-Time and Cajun music. I thought The Mountain Alligators would be a great name for us, but nobody else liked it.
20
At least NY's climate isn't particularly hospitable to any crocodilia (alligator or crocodile). We could be Colombia that now, thanks to Pablo Escobar, has a breeding population of Hippos munching their way into the Amazon. Very big and very bad tempered.
9
Love the Tom Otterness gator at the 14th Street station. He is a great artist.
20
Raconteur Jean Shepherd, on his radio show on WOR, talked about albino alligators in the sewers of New York on July 30, 1960. In his show on May 29, 1973, he said that his earlier show was the origin of the alligator story. He said the alligators were purchased as pets and later flushed down the toilets.
5
@Jack :
no way would a few years in a sewer cause the alligators, or any other animal to become Albino...
2
I adore the little alligator effect I can see on my phone as I scroll the article in the NYT app.
23
Who needs coronavirus if you have alligators?
You New Yorkers are really SOMETHIN'!
Once again, NYT, you made my day.
Thanks.
12
Didn't the children's book Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport also have a reference to alligators in NY's sewers?
5
We can capture all the gators in the sewers and put them in the moat to be built to protect the border.
The gators escape to the river and are mutated because of all the chemicals dumped int the Rio Grande.
Don Jr. and Eric,'' the Great White Hunters" are called to hunt the giant mutants down, then something goes wrong, or right depending on your point of view.
Two endings filmed, depending on where the film will play.
23
Yes, I love the gif! I get this all too well, as an ex-muni animal services worker, who has taken calls reporting cobras, pigs, bobcats and moutain lions that ALL turned out to be gopher snakes, domestic cats or domestic dogs.
19
There's a monster under the bed, as I leap to the mattress from 7 feet out to avoid being grabbed. Alligators in the sewers touch the same freaky unknown regardless of ones age.
But now, knowing they can't survive freezing rushing waters and toxic garbage gives me the courage to stroll by sewer manholes without a thought. That is, except the sewers around Trump Tower where the swamp creatures regularly get fed beefsteak!
21
I can personally attest to having confronted a baby croc (or gator I don't honestly know) on the bathroom floor of our Plaza Hotel room in the late '70s. This can be corroborated by by wife, Joy, who witnessed my capturing it in a bath towel and flushing it back from whence it came. It was no more than a foot long but sizable enough to unsettle us thoroughly.
10
@Brock Walsh You flushed it back down the toilet? It probably resurfaced in one of the other hotel rooms toilet.
8
I remember as a Cub Scout reading that the American alligator was very rare and endanger of extinction. Then the species was protected and flourished. Now they can be a danger. How the worm as turned.
1
@Walter you may be thinking of the American crocodile, which are very rare but are found in South Florida
6
This is a superb use of newspaper archives by Mr. Kllgannon. Also the GIF deserves a life of its own. Thank you --
33
Thanks for this; very entertaining and a nice escape from the news. Maybe you could start a rumor that alligators carry the Coronavirus. That would be even more fun!
9
Amazing excerpt articles from the 20th century NYC newspaper collection! I enjoyed reading each story as very noteworthy.
Glad to see referenced Animal Care Centers of NYC as q regional nonprofit entity providing field rescue then placement into a sanctuary. An important "best practice" for our regional community if a human accidently discovers alligator(s) nearby.
Truly amazing story! NYT got history, animal rescue and NYC 21st century combined in a fascinating piece of journalism! Made my Wednesday!
20
Love the little alligator-emerging-from-sewer graphic!
52
In the film, "Alligator", the sewer worker who was killed by the beast was named...Ed Norton!
24
@Immy
So there's an even bigger one named "The Great One" stiil out there?
7
Who needs alligators, when manatees have been recorded coming up the East Coast as far as Cape Cod, and returning to Florida when it gets cold.
Florida pelicans also come to Long Island in the summer.
5
@Andrew Porter :
manatees are vegetarians....pelicans don't bother humans. Both species are endangered.
5
The animation is a brilliant addition. Kudos to whoever thought of that.
92
As I recall, back in the '80's, in the long connecting passageway between the 7th Ave and 8th Ave stations, there were a series of alligator reliefs attached to the wall by the sewage drains. Made to appear as if they were emerging from the grates they provided an amusing distraction as one walked by.
I guess the remaining sculpture you pictured is now the only remaining piece of that amusing art installation.
18
This is SO much better than reading about Trump. Thank you for a lovely bit of respite.
218
@H-OB Guess that you prefer gators to snakes....
28
Haha. I loved the little alligator graphic and the article. Thanks for the whimsy.
46
Bring back the tee shirt. I would buy one!
55
Fun article, but what's an official quasi holiday?
3
unbelievable! thank goodness I live in NZ and we don't have an alligators, or snakes or poisonous spiders everywhere. At least I can sit down anywhere and not have to worry that an an alligator or snake biting my backside!
10
@CK
No alligators or snakes; sounds really boring. Maybe you should import some scorpions.
1
@Corkcampbell
Or brown recluse spiders.
1
Just wish people were not allowed to purchase them as pets.
60
The raconteur Jean Shepherd, on his radio show on WOR, talked about albino alligators in the sewers of New York on July 30, 1960. In his show on May 29, 1973, he claimed to have originated the story of alligators in the sewer by talking about them in his earlier show.
5
Alligators... pffft.
Fear the anacondas.
21
How did you not include the 2019 film, "Crawl" (tagline - THEY WILL HUNT YOU) ?
7
If John Flaherty was wearing a Lacoste sweater, the animal on his sweater is a crocodile not an alligator.
8
There was an episode of TV show Barney Miller in the 1970s in which a criminal escaping through NYC sewers was bitten by something and claimed it was an alligator. "They get brought back by kids from Florida," he maintained.
15
Thank you for this, I needed it!
7
What a croc!
50
As I was reading the comments, I saw the GIF of an alligator sticking his head out of a manhole cover in the lower left corner of the page. Actually, it was right under the picture of Bernie Kerik, which seems so appropriate. Touche',NYT!
32
In 1954 my aunt and uncle, visiting Florida, shipped us a baby alligator. It arrived dead. So they sent a 2nd one , which arrived alive to our home in Baltimore, where we kept it in a deep basement basin. After several months, as it began to grow, we gave it to the Baltimore Zoo. It was a pet, which, however brief I had it, I NEVER forgot.
43
Wasn’t a pet. (Was a prisoner, a captive.)
17
Along with birds, bees and other insects, its all part of highly complex ecosystems that are currently disappearing at an profoundly disturbing rate. While less bugs seems like a good idea, today we know that every creature serves a purpose and human's ham-handed attempts to deal with animal "problems" usually result in a worse one(s).
We have the technology and the money to get rid of single family dwellings in favor of much more environmentally-sustainable communities.
I'm hoping that at some point, most of a given house is underground with only a tiny portion above ground. Much more importantly, roads will all be underground, mostly with public transportation or at least auto-driven cars.
Factories will be underground as will be most businesses.
All the rest of the surface will be nature, walking paths, clean fresh air.
Sigh....
.
1
@SMcStormy And your observations have WHAT to do with the story? Jus' sayin'.
14
@SMcStormy
Huh? We're talking alligators here; reply to the wrong article?
5
Once we move underground, we lose our eyesight. Without the sun, our vision goes and we will become albinos. Without our vision, our other senses will be heightened. Then we will be ready to battle the sewer gators!!
7
The one thing that's really surprising is that Hollywood hasn't yet made a scary movie about this! Think "THEM!" with blind albino alligators.
9
Cool rep in the corner, NYT!
68
Back in the late 1800s, an estate owner in Montecito, California had a couple of pet alligators that grew to adulthood and would occasionally go AWOL. One night, a gentleman returning home from a bar got the fright of his life and swore off drinking:
“I was coming home several weeks ago, rather early in the evening – about eleven-seventy I think it was – when my horse stopped plumb in the middle of the road, and refused to budge. I jumped out after a bit, and couldn’t see anything at first, but after a little, I saw the damndest sight of my life. Now my horse hadn’t ‘had anything,’ and he saw it, so it must have been something. At any rate, slap in the middle of the road, standing on its tail and hind legs was a crocodile at least eight feet tall. It gnashed its teeth at me and made faces, and then came down on ‘all fours’ and jumped the fence like a greyhound. I have stuck to ginger pop, with a little something added ever since.” – Santa Barbara Morning Press, May 28, 1897
55
@Betsy J :
sorry, they DO NOT chase people or anything else on their hind legs. They also don't "make faces".
1
There was a guy in Milwaukee who had some 5 foot alligators he was keeping in a warehouse.
3
You didn't mention "The House on 88th Street" by Bernard Waber, written in 1962. This was the first book in the Lyle the crocodile--but maybe that's why not! Crocs and Gators are two different characters.
15
In elementary school in New York we went on a field trip to a musical for school kids called Are There Alligators Living in the Sewers of the City of New York. I remember nothing of the event except the title and singing the title song on the way back to school in the bus with my friends (ork, orkydork).
6
I love the little animated alligator at the bottom of the screen. Thanks for some fun!
152
@A W I feel like he's trying to tell us something ...
8
@A W
I thought it was the best part of the article, especially with him opening his mouth, like he's looking to take a healthy bite out of Richard Willis in that photo or reclaim the gator that's in his hands.
Kudos to the graphic guys and gals!!
17
Love the alligator pop-up at the side. What a cutie :)
108
A very insightful article about a great legend.
Reminds me of the movie C.H.U.D----Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. A classic from the 80's!
13
I wasn't aware alligators had a "cute phase." They're scary looking no matter the size.
13
One of my favorite books as a child was "The Great Escape" by Peter Lippman. It tells the story of Silas the Alligator, who is captured as a baby from his home in Florida, taken to NYC, eventually flushed down the toilet, and plots his escape to return home. Really funny with great illustrations!
23
As a child in the 1970s, I must have checked out the Great Escape 100 times from my little library in northern Michigan. So glad to see this.
5
Having grown up in NYC in the 1950's and 1960's, I remember that alligators in the sewers was accepted fact.
18
You realize people will want to order them, regardless of laws, don't you. I originally hail from Louisiana, a state with many such creatures (and other more wicked).
3
All I have to say is that the little animated graphic of the alligator coming out of a hole on the right side of this article is adorable.
98
I love the animation.
62
My grandfather was a science teacher in Brooklyn in the 1930s and '40s. As such he had a small zoo in his classroom, including one alligator. While most of the animals were able to summer with various students no one wanted the gator, so it summered in my grandparents' tub.
Whenever someone needed to use the tub, the gator was put in a cage on the fire escape. One day, my grandmother went to to retrieve the gator and not only found the cage empty, but the fire escape stairs down (at the time they lived in an old, large private house that had been subdivided into apartments so it was an old school fire escape).
Off my grandmother went in search of the gator. It didn't tale long until she heard some screaming and hissing coming from an open sewer ditch on Ave. P. Looking down she saw several construction workers with shovels ready to clobber the gator.
Don't hurt him, screamed my grandmother. He's mine! She then went down, rescued the gator and took him home. A bit later, when the gator grew too large, he was donated to the Staten Island Zoo where I supposed he lived happily in retirement.
178
I love this story.
18
@Mike
Animals confined to tiny spaces don't live happily, in retirement or otherwise.
13
Back in the early 1960s, my parents returned by air from a trip to Florida. My mother tried to use the airplane restroom, but was it was occupied. Another passenger was giving the pet alligator he had purchased a bath in the restroom sink! I remember seeing alligators for sale in Florida myself when our whole family visited by car in that era.
Great article, bringing back many memories of the wild stories about alligators.
17
@PSE I remember when my family visited Florida in the summer of 1969, to watch the Apollo 11 launch at Cape Kennedy. On our way back to Daytona Beach, my dad stopped for gas and the rest of the family got out to buy Cokes. In the back of the gas station, the owner had a bathtub that was literally full of Caymans, the cousin of the Alligator. Of course, I immediately wanted one, and was disappointed, as any 7 year old boy would be when my parents told me we aren't taking a reptile back to Ohio in the back of a Buick.
16
I'm glad you mentionef "V" by Thomas Pynchon. It's a fabulous read, not only for the alligator hunt (which I remember from the 1950s) but for many other reasons. Also try "The Crying of Lot 49" and "Gravity's Rainbow" by the same author.
22
I loved "Gravity's Rainbow". "V" not so much. Gators live in Louisiana as well.
1
@Easy Goer And East Texas where it is a protected game animal. Tastes like chicken (thanks to wildlife biologist with a permit and gun and a kitchen)
2