The Truth About Alligators in the Sewers of New York - NYC, NY, USA
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Ariberna
N 40° 45.134 W 073° 58.691
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Sightings over the decades have lent an air of legitimacy to the century-old urban myth. Here’s how it all started.
Waymark Code: WM17BDH
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 01/19/2023
Views: 14
"They are big. They are vicious. Some say they are albinos, because of a lack of sunlight.
They are the alligators that supposedly infest New York City’s sewer system, slithering through the bowels just under the street level, feeding on rats and rubbish and terrorizing sewer workers armed with guns for self-defense.
These gators may be the city’s most entrenched urban myth, one that has permeated pop culture and has become a recurring theme in books, television shows and movies.
That century-old myth has spawned hoaxes and art projects. It has even become an official quasi-holiday in the city: Alligator in the Sewer Day is in February.
And the tales are sort of true. The city rescues several alligators a year, typically former pets that have been abandoned after having outgrown their cute phase.
With every new sighting, the legend gets another boost.
Alligator sightings sometimes prompted hunting expeditions, such as one in 1932 after several of the reptiles disappeared from captivity in Belleville, a town along the Passaic River in New Jersey.
The same year, the police mobilized a hunt in Westchester County, just north of New York City, after two boys brought in a three-foot dead gator and claimed that the Bronx River was swarming with live ones.
Armed with fishing nets and chunks of calves’ liver, officers combed “the jungles of the Bronx River to capture alligators for the Bronx Zoo,” The Times reported, adding that the hunt was discontinued when the police realized that the boys had merely found an escaped pet."
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