URBAN LEGEND? REAL CROCODILE CAUGHT IN BROOKLYN

Another New York legend (no not the dog again) is the alligator-in-the-sewer, which students trace to Feb. 10, 1935, when a group of teenagers discovered a 7-foot 'gator in a manhole in East Harlem. Hauled out with a rope, it tried feebly to open its jaws and was dispatched with snow shovels, according to a story in The New York Times.
From that incident apparently grew the widespread myth the city's sewers teemed with reptiles that had been bought as souvenir pets in Florida and were discarded when they became too big for their cages.

Looks like another crocodile turned up in New York City yesterday, far from its native habitat in the tropical Americas, and replenishing one of the city's most enduring urban legends. On Tuesday, police responding to a 911 call in Starrett City, a public housing complex in Brooklyn, found a two-foot caiman (crocodile) in a cardboard box, with a shoelace firmly tied around its jaw.

The police gathered up the crocodile and turned it over to Animal Care & Control. "The caiman was cold, and we had to warm it up," said Richard Gentles, director of administration for AC&C. But whoever left it in the box was concerned that nobody got hurt, he said. "It was pretty feisty. The shoestring was double-knotted for safety, like a running shoe."

The last time it happened was in June, 2001, when a small caiman was discovered in the Harlem Meer, a lake in the northeast corner of Central Park. After it eluded capture for five days, a self-described alligator expert flew in from a Florida game park to save the city. After some posturing, he used a canoe and a flashlight to retrieve the reptile in minutes.
(Courtesy AP News)