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It's long been rumored there are thriving colonies of alligators lurking in New York City's sewer system. Supposedly, baby alligators brought back as pets from Florida end up being dumped into the sewer system when they outgrow their young and innocent stage. From such an inglorious beginning, these discarded gators grow to immense size and daily terrorize all those foolish enough to risk a visit to the bowels of the city. We've all heard it. And it ain't true. It's amazing who believes in those invisible alligators too. As the Director of the New York Sea Grant Institute in Albany) said to The New York Times in 1982: No less a source than All the New That's Fit to Print reported a veritable rash of 'saurian sightings' in the city sewers through the 1930's. You know, if you stopped right there, you might walk away from all this convinced there are alligators down there. But it's amazing what a little digging will uncover (or, in this case, not uncover). Figuring any alligators in our sewers! story would be considered newsworthy by the New York press, I went through The New York Times index from 1905 to 1993 in search of alligator stories. Then I located each story on microfilm. Here's a summary of what I found: All these alligators found in and around New York City, but only one had turned up in a sewer. (Mind you, Westchester County looks like a fine place to avoid if you're not saurianly inclined — every second gator story seemed to come from there.) Not surprising either, for alligators thrive in Florida and it's hard to believe creatures that accustomed to a warm climate would survive in the NY sewer system. A New York winter is hard on native New Yorkers; I wouldn't think a colony of gators would stand a chance in that cold. Nature writer Diane Ackerman has this to say about alligators' longevity under those conditions: Despite the dearth of news stories about NY alligators and in the face of what we know about how gators are put together, the alligators in the New York sewer system stories persist. Most of the blame for this tale's persistence should be assigned to Robert Daley's 1959 World Beneath The City. In it, Daley passes along a tale from Teddy May, New York's superintendent of sewers until 1955. According to the book, sewer inspectors first reported seeing gators around 1935, but May did not believe them. He went himself into the sewers and afterwards: According to that book, these alligators were dispatched by various means including being poisoned, shot, or herded into the trunk mains where currents washed them out to sea. This massive alligator hunt wasn't reported in the popular press, yet as we've seen, The New York Times will publish just about anything that has to do with alligators in or around New York. As well, World Beneath The City doesn't give a date for the supposed occurrence; all it says is Teddy May first heard gator reports in 1935. The date of his visit to the sewers or the extermination of the alligators is not provided. Daley spoke to May in 1959 (when May was 84 years old and 20-odd years after the alligators were supposedly discovered and dispatched down there). The details are a bit too fuzzy and there's a decided lack of outside confirmation. May's story is best regarded as a fanciful tale. As for how seriously to take May, according to a 1992 magazine article, . . . a sewer official told [folklorist Jan Harold] Brunvand that Teddy May was 'almost as much of a legend as the alligators,' a spinner of colorful yarns. Each year at least half a dozen people ask New York City's Bureau of Sewers about those infamous gators. John T. Flaherty (Chief of Design) answers these inquiries routinely. Flaherty (whose sense of humor is of the dry yet deadly variety) added the one clear proof of the absence of alligators — not a single union official has ever advanced alligator infestation as a reason for a pay increase for sewer workers. Even though it's next to impossible to prove something didn't happen, I would still suggest from the lack of credible sightings it's safe to assume there are no alligators down there. The tall tale about thriving colonies of alligators lurking in New York's sewers finds an antecedent in another (at that time, at least) widely believed tale recorded in 1851 about feral pigs or hogs infesting the sewers in Hampstead [London]: As a suitable finale, I present excerpts from a 1932 New York Times about police plans to stalk alligators they believed were living in a Bronx River lair:
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