Gators in my sewers?

A story that broke this weekend about a Brooklyn jogger finding a few caimans (alligator cousins) hanging out in a park reminded me of an old family story.

Back in the 1930s and 1940s my grandfather was a public school science teacher in Brooklyn. As part of his curriculum he kept live animals in his room. Ducks, rabbits, fish and, strangely, one alligator. I don't remember where the gator came from, probably some student ordered a baby from Florida and it ended up in my grandfather's care when the baby became a little bigger, probably thinking "cats, it's what's for dinner."

At the end of the school year, my grandfather would ask his students to board the animals for the summer. Strangely nobody ever offered to take in the gator. So the alligator would spend summers in a bathtub in an attic apartment on Ave P near Coney Island Ave. Apparently this was never an issue with my grandmother, despite raising a then toddler daughter and my grandfather's youngest brother after my great-grandparents died.

Whenever somebody need to use the tub, the gator would be placed in a crate to get some summer sun on the fire escape. All was well until one day my grandmother went to bring the alligator back in and saw the door from it's crate was open and the alligator had decided to stretch its legs. Worse, the fire escape ladder was down, meaning the alligator had escaped to wander the not so mean streets of Brooklyn.

In a panic, my grandmother ran out to the street looking for the alligator. As she approached Coney Island Ave she heard some construction workers screaming from a sewer ditch. She also heard some hissing. She looked down and saw the construction workers ready to clobber the alligator. Before they could, my grandmother yelled down, "Stop! That's my alligator!" Before the workers could react further, my grandmother climbed down in her high heeled shoes and dress (typical 1940s women clothing) and picked up the gator who I guess didn't have a problem with my grandmother handling it as she had all her limbs and external body parts until she died. She then carried the gator home and placed it back in its tub.

I've always wondered if my grandparents were part of the basis for those alligators in NYC sewer stories. In any event, the alligator remained in my grandfather's class for a few more years. I never asked what he fed it (hopefully chicken from the butcher and not lazy ducks from the classroom), but after a time it became apparent that it was getting too big for the class (not to mention my uncle had been born by then). When last heard from, their alligator was in retirement at the Staten Island Zoo. My grandparents are long gone now but whenever I hear I a story about alligators found in NYC I think of them.