One of Gotham's most enduring legends is the alligator-in-the-sewer, which students of the subject trace to Feb. 19, 1935 when a group of teenagers discovered a seven-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.