83 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
83 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
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Subject: Re: alligators in sewers?
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In article <3080@keele.keele.ac.uk> cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
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+> In article <1992Jun27.235945.4406@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
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zk@coos.dartmouth.edu
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+> (Generator) writes:
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+>> Hey, I was wondering....Anyone know why people claim there are
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+>> alligators in sewers?
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+
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+I don't know, maybe its the fear of the nearby unknown. In Victorian
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London there was a scare about savage
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+black pigs living in the sewers. Are there any present day reports of
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+subterranean porcine horrors?
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Sounds like a great story. I'd like to hear of some details/updates.
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Well, it's been a while since I've written a long post, so here goes.
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A wealth of detail on the "alligators in the sewers of New York City"
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legend is detailed in _The Vanishing Hitchhiker_ by Jan Harold
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Brunvand (more abbreviated versions are in _More of the Straight Dope_
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and _Rumor!_).
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While I won't recount the details of the legend this time around, I
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will share some details on what may have been the origins of this story
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in _The Vanishing Hitchhiker_.
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Anthropologist Loren Coleman checked out "unusual phenomena and events"
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and especially animal lore in the United States. He found over 70
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such reports from 1843-1973 but only one pertaining to sewers.
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In the February 10, 1935 _New York Times_, there a report of kids in
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the East 123rd Street area who were dumping snow into an open manhole.
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Salvatore Condulucci, 16 yrs old was watching near the rim of manhole
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and would direct his friends to dump more slush in as the level went
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down to ensure that the sewer wouldn't be overly clogged. Then there
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were signs of clogging 10 feet down where the sewer connects to the
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Harlem river. He saw something black moving and then shouts to everyone,
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"Honest, it's an alligator." The story is summarized in the Times'
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headlines as:
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ALLIGATOR FOUND IN UPTOWN SEWER
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Youths Shoveling Snow into Manhole
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See the Animal Churning in Icy Water
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SNARE IT AND DRAG IT OUT
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Reptile Slain by Rescuers
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When It Gets Vicious--
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Whnce It Came is Mystery
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The reporter speculated that the alligator came from a passing boat
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from "the mysterious Everglades."
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Separately, Robert Daley in _The World Beneath the City_ writes that
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there was apparently a problem with alligators in the sewers in the
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1930s. Former Commissioner of Sewers Teddy May personally inspected
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the sewers and told Daley that he found alligators with an average
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length of 2 feet. He then commenced on an eradication campaign and
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announed that all were exterminated by 1937.
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These two points then seem to form a pretty good basis for the enduring
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legend.
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Daley's writeup of his talk with May was published in 1959. Brunvand
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includes a fantasy-paradoy of the alligator story in the 1974 _New
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Yorker_ and also mentions that Thomas Pynchon's 1963 sci-fi _V_ contains
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one of most detailed treatments of the legend. Brunvand speculates
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that Pynchon may have been influenced by hearing of Daley's discussion
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with May.
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If the accounts are true, then perhaps the "alligators in the sewers"
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legend may be similar to the Shergold stories. I think there is some
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debate as to whether one would say that the alligators were indeed
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living in the sewers or were they dumped and found there or whatever.
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Terry "tastes like chicken" Chan
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