A story dating back to the 1930s or early
1940s holds that full-grown alligators live in the sewers beneath New York
City, flushed there as foot-long pets when kids or their parents tired of
them. The phrase alligators-in-the-sewers legend has since been used
humorously to indicate something mythical or untrue. Columnist George
Vecsey wrote in the New York Times (9/24/04): “The alligator-in-the-sewers
legend is that [Harry] Frazee, who owned the Red Sox, sold Babe Ruth to
the Yankees after the 191999 season to finance a new show called No, No,
Nanette. Only in the past few years has it been drummed into brains that
Nanette did not appear on Broadway until 1925.