![]() May started an extermination campaign, using poisoned bait followed by flooding of the side tunnels to flush the beasts out into the major arteries where hunters with. "The beam of his own flashlight had spotlighted alligators whose length, on the average, was about two feet." "Instead, he set men to watch the sewer walkers to find out how they were obtaining whisky down in the pipes." Persistent reports, however, perhaps including the newspaper item discovered by Coleman, caused May to go down to find out for "According to May, sewer inspectors first reported seeing alligators in 1935, but neither May nor anyone else believed them. The Journal of American Folklore has this to say on the subject: In Robert Daley's book The World Beneath the City (1959) he comments that one night a sewer worker in New York City was shocked to find a large albino alligator swimming toward him. The most common story is that the alligators survive and reside within the sewer and reproduce, feeding on rats and garbage, growing to huge sizes and striking fear into sewer workers. When the alligator grew too large for comfort, the family would proceed to flush the reptile down the toilet. Tourists from New York City would buy a baby alligator and try to raise it as a pet. Louisiana or Florida to New York City Īs late as the middle of the 20th century, souvenir shops in Florida sold live baby alligators (in small fish tanks) as novelty souvenirs. In their honor, February 9 is Alligators in the Sewers Day in Manhattan. However, the story of the "sewer gator" in New York City is well known and various versions have been told. Interviews with him were the basis of the first published accounts of sewer alligators. It is questionable how accurate the original stories are, and some have even suggested they are fictions created by Teddy May, who was the Commissioner of Sewers at the time. Legend įollowing the reports of sewer alligators in the 1930s, the story has built up over the decades and become more of a contemporary legend. Ī similar story from 1851 involves feral pigs in the sewers of Hampstead, London. Sewer maintenance crews insist there is no underground population of alligators in sewers. ![]() Though escapees and former pets may survive for a short time in New York sewers, longer-term survival is not possible due to the low temperatures and the bacteria in human feces. The New York Times reports the city rescues 100 alligators per year, some directly from homes where they are kept as illegal pets (which can be legally ordered online in other states and are legal to mail when small), and some from outside (where they can attract considerable attention) though mostly above-ground. These myths are based upon reports of alligator sightings in rather unorthodox locations, in particular New York City. Stories date back to the late 1920s and early 1930s in most instances they are part of contemporary legend. These accounts are mostly fictional and are rare to encounter. A model of an alligator emerging from a sewer manhole in a shopping centerĪ sewer alligator is an alligator that lives in sewers.
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