This photo is an urban legend come true—a real baby alligator crawling out of a New York City sewer. What makes this image especially lovely though, is that it was snapped hastily with a cameraphone.


Apparently New York resident Joyce Hackett found herself driving past an intersection where a large group of people was gathered around a car. Like any other curious person might, she quickly pulled over, slipped out of her car, and peeked around the crowd to see what was going on. She saw the two-foot-long fellow pictured above and acted quickly to get that particular snapshot:

Ms. Hackett quickly, carefully, slung her iPhone to ground level and snapped a shot, she said. A police officer on the scene warned her that maybe she should not do that. But angling for a better shot, she stuck her phone down a bit further. "Be careful!" the officer said, with a bit more urgency. Then the officer snuck a peek at the pictures on Ms. Hackett's iPhone and asked her to e-mail them to her.


There's still a bit of a mystery regarding just how this alligator wound up crawling around New York, but thanks to a quick-thinking cameraphone-carrying citizen, we can all have visual proof that urban legends can come true. [NYT via Gawker]

Real Live Alligator Emerges from New York City Sewer System You know that urban legend about alligators living in New York City sewers? Well: A baby alligator… Read more

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Photo by Joyce Hackett/New York Times