2019 Spring
Zhuo Diao (zd2226)
ANTHGR6223 Final Paper
Prof. Zoe Crossland
Manhattan Chinatown, Alligator Meat and Urban Myth
—A multi-position and semiotic study of food tradition and originality
Introduction
June 26, 2013 was not a pleasant summer day for some residents in Williamsburg, New York when they
found alligator feet scattered around their neighborhood sidewalks. When Daily News first reported the
story,1 the alligator feet were believed to be the remains of a pet alligator, a reptile shop owner asserted
that it was “certainly a mutilation situation” caused by some irresponsible owner when his/her alligator
became too large, as they certainly would. The thought that someone consumed or used the main body of
an alligator and discarded the feet on sidewalk is not only disturbing but also confusing for residents in
this Brooklyn neighborhood. However, the confusion did not last long. Not until one week later a blog on
Gothamist pointed out how close Williamsburg is to Manhattan Chinatown, where “there are exotic food
spots aplenty”, so “hipster hooligans can easily buy a pack of alligator hand-paws for just $5.99 a pound
(a bargain!)”2
I am very interested in the fact that the Gothamist author blamed Chinatown for providing alligator feet at
low price, although the main market of alligator meat in China is limited in a small area, the Pearl River
Delta, where alligators are imported or farmed under strict laws and sold as expensive supplements. But
as a famous American South specialty, alligator meat was labeled exotic, strange and kind of disgusting in
See Morales & Goldstein, “‘Beast of Brooklyn’: Bizarre find of severed alligator limbs on Williamsburg
street”, New York Daily News, June 26, 2013.
1
See Evans, “Is Someone Buying Alligator Arms And Scattering Them Around Williamsburg?”,
Gothamist, July 1, 2013.
2
both articles, just like it is for most Chinese residents. Who are buying the alligator feet in Manhattan
Chinatown? Why do they have to eat alligator meat in New York, where there is no tradition for it? In the
first two sections of this paper, I will compare the tradition and market of eating alligator and crocodile
meat in both China and the US. I consulted a dozen of people who grew up or live around the Pearl River
Delta for their memory or experience eating crocodile meat, as well as their impression of American
alligator recipes. In the third section, I will return to the Manhattan Chinatown, with information drawn
from newspapers, tourist guide and online resources from all time. Section three will trace back the
history of reptile products sold in Manhattan Chinatown. How they were mentioned and described in
these literature, what kind of impression they left with the authors, and who were the customers. These
discussions also lead to the final section, the urban myth of the Sewer Alligator in New York. The
appearance of alligators in New York almost always causes panic for New Yorkers who have been living
with the Sewer Alligator stories since 1935. In this section I would argue that it is the coincidental
juxtaposition of a Chinese food tradition with the ever famous urban myth that have made the Manhattan
Chinatown alligator both a false image of strangeness as well as a collective and site-specified nightmare.
I am inspired by Anna Tsing’s book The Mushroom at the End of the World for this topic, so the first half
of this paper is dedicated to discuss the global scene of trading and consuming alligator products, the
alligators and crocodiles imported to China from Southeast Asia and Africa, the Florida alligator products
sold in New York. Alligators formed the fine lines connecting these locations and people around the world
in the market. But in New York particularly, alligators are the signs of metropolitan life, the deep fear for
sewer alligators wound up in New York goes hand in hand with the post-capitalism anxiety, or a popular
culture version of anthropocene concerns. In the second half of the paper I will use semiotic theories to
discuss alligator as a sign in Manhattan Chinatown and also in New York, I’m interested in the different
interpretations of alligator intertwined in time and location, especially as the local supply chain of
alligator from Florida to Manhattan Chinatown to meet the food tradition imported from China as an
inside-out enclave.
Alligator as food, in China
Figure 1. A dried products shop in Hong Kong
showcasing a stuffed American alligator at
their front door. (Photo: Phyllis Xu)
How to encourage people to spend money on the meat of a dangerous foreign animal? In China you have
a good chance if people are convinced that it is good for health. Every author promoting alligator meat
would quote the 16th century medical book Compendium of Materia Medica (本草纲⽬ Ben Cao Gang
Mu) that alligator meat is “nourishing”3 , at the same time, omitting the following sentence, “but it is
unnecessary to eat” 4. In fact, there are no evidence that alligators lived in 16th century China. The author
of Compendium of Material Medica quoted this sentence from a 5th century medical book5 , when
alligators can be found in China as the weather was still warm. Indeed, alligator or crocodile scales and
3
See Kuang ed., A Guide to Dried Seafood in Hong Kong, pp134-135, Wan Li Book Co Ltd. 2013.,
4
Li, Compendium of Materia Medica (本草纲⽬ Ben Cao Gang Mu) Chapter 48, 4.
5
The <本草经集注> (Ben Cao Jing Ji Zhu) by Tao, Hongjing.
gall were occasionally used as medical treatments throughout the history of Chinese medicine, the
“nourishing but unnecessary to eat” alligator meat was never a common dish in any parts of China.
I would like to point out that it was unclear whether the animal described in these medical books was
alligator or crocodile as it was under a different name and none of the literature mentioned the originality
of the ingredient. But as Chinese salt waters are concentrated in the west, where the environment is not
suitable for crocodiles to live, I would assume that the scales and livers used as medicine were from
alligator or imported crocodiles from Southeast Asia. On the Chinese market today, no clear distinctions
were made between alligator and crocodile products, none of the recipes and food guides specified it
should be crocodiles imported from Africa or alligator from United States. All of the different species
appear on Chinese market as E Yu (鳄鱼), the expensive meat good for your airway and asthma, at least
for those who did not look up Compendium of Materia Medica for the full sentence.
Interestingly, there are only two kinds of alligator in the world, the American alligator (Alligator
mississippiensis), and the Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis). Chinese alligator is relatively small in
size, it has been listed as Class I endangered species in China for more than forty years and critically
endangered on IUCN Red List since 2017. There are about 150 Chinese alligators in the wild, much more
in the reserve areas but it is against the law to eat them. However, a considerable market is right out there
around the Pearl River Delta. In Guangdong Province, more than 100,000 alligators and crocodiles were
consumed annually, and this was only a conservative estimate in 2009.6 A large amount of the crocodiles
were smuggled into Guangdong so the accurate number may never be known, but the market is certainly
growing. In 2001, there were five certified crocodile farm in Guangdong Province with 60,745 crocodiles,
however, nearly 60,000 of them were kept in the world’s largest crocodile farm at the time, the Xiangjiang
Wild Animal World.7 Ten years later the number of crocodile farms increased to more than thirty in
6
Zhen, “Investigation of smuggled crocodiles in Guangdong”, Xinhua Net, Feb 6th 2009.
7
Yue, “World’s largest crocodile farm settled in Fanyu, Guangdong”, People’s Daily, Sep 3rd, 2001.
Guangdong alone, 8 one of the largest crocodile farm nowadays, the Hong Yi Crocodile Properties, holds
about 170,000 crocodiles, according to their website, they aim to increase the number to one million in
five years.9
When I read Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World I was constantly wondering why she
never mentioned the gourmet carnival every year in Yunan during the mushroom picking season, when
people ended up in hospital eating undercooked toxic mushrooms but would still pursue the savory next
spring. The answer is probably obvious from Part I when she commented the smell of the mushrooms as
“disturbing”.10 Which also links to the conclusion in another essay on matsutake of Tsing “Because of
matsutake’s reputation as a strength-giving tonic, demand for it — not a traditional Chinese food — is
developing across China.”11 Tsing’s personal dislike of the mushroom was further misled by the classic
sales talks of local dealers, it is true that tonic is often the reason Chinese customers would be drawn to an
unfamiliar food ingredient, but the still ongoing zeal with matsutake, alligator meat, or the new
enthusiasm for avocado all proved that after the initial reason is exploited, flavor is what kept the market
going. The definition of delicious in the long and complicated Chinese food tradition has became
extremely wide and open, and Pearl River Delta happens to have the reputation of daring and novel in
their choice of food.
Chen Wenjian, a Macau local and worldwide food lover told me he prefers the crocodile dishes in
Guangzhou (capital city of Guangdong Province) to those in Hong Kong. “At first, importing frozen
crocodile meat was easier in Hong Kong, they make soup with it.” But Chen does not like the taste of
8
Zhen, “Investigation of smuggled crocodiles in Guangdong”, 2009.
9
See http://gdhyey.com.cn/
Tsing, The mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins, P14.
Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2015.
10
Tsing, “Blasted landscapes (and the gentle arts of mushroom picking)” in The Multispecies Salon. P87.
Duke University Press.
11
frozen or dried crocodile/alligator12 meat, “now the crocodile meat in Guangzhou came directly from the
crocodile farm, it’s fresh and delicious, especially when braised with soy sauce.” For Chen, the taste of
crocodile meat is more important than its medical effect, “I don’t think it would cure asthma but it should
be good for general health”, his favorite dish is the braised crocodile meat in dry pot. However another
local Guangdong girl Wanwan described crocodile/alligator meat as “mild in nature”, she like the taste of
it and would adorn her other soup with dried crocodile/alligator meat to enhance the flavor, it is a tradition
in her family to eat snakes, crocodiles or anything that is considered to be good for health. Apparently,
soup with dried crocodile/alligator meat is more often a homemade dish while braised crocodile meat are
more complicated to cook. Like many others, Chen ate his first crocodile course as guest on a business
banquet, when crocodiles served as the main, exotic and expensive course. It is a gesture from the host, a
sign of hospitality and sincerity, same as all the nouvelle Cantonese cuisine emerged in Hong Kong since
1970s, characterized by the use of exotic ingredients, adventurous cooking techniques, excellent catering
service and outstanding décor and ambience.13 But among many others who ever lived or worked in
Guangdong and Hong Kong that I consulted for this paper, Chen is one of the few who would actively eat
alligator/crocodile meat by himself. It is also worth mentioning that many who moved to Guangdong
from other parts of China, and many who have lived there for years, even some who grew up in
Guangzhou, told me unanimously that they have never ate alligator/crocodile meat, do not know where to
buy it, and cannot understand the large market behind it.
Alligator as food, in US
The US has a long history of hunting and farming American alligators that can be traced back to 1800s.
According to the data from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, there were a total of
25,812 (equals to 126, 221 ft.) hides produced in the 86 licensed alligator farms in Florida as of 2017.14
12 Again,
there is no clear distinction of crocodiles and alligators in Chinese market, normally the farms
would raise crocodiles but dried meat may also made from American alligators. So in this paper I put
alligator/crocodile for dried products that I cannot confirm.
13
Cheung and Wu, eds. 2002. The Globalisation of Chinese Food, P106. Florence: Routledge
See Farm Alligator Harvest Data on Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website
https://myfwc.com/media/1712/alligator-farm-value.pdf
14
Although 1993 was the peak year for Florida alligator harvest when 38,505 hides were produced, the
number of alligator farms increased steadily over the past forty years, indicating the long-standing
confidence in the market. A study of University of Florida in 1989 shows there were 42 licensed alligator
farms in Florida. Approximately 45,000 wild and farmed alligator hides were produced in Florida,
Louisiana and Texas, which contributed 15% of the total 300,000 alligator and crocodile hides on world
market at the time.15 But according to Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, over 300,000
alligators are now harvested annually in Louisiana alone, while the population level remains stable.16
Recent studies argue that in Australia, Thailand, South Africa and the US, alligator meat are only byproduct of the leather farming of crocodile and alligator. European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)
published an report on the public health risks involved in the human consumption of reptile meat,
specifically pointed out the possibility of contamination when crocodiles are skinned to remove their
valuable hides.17 EFSA also stated that “meat harvested for human consumption almost exclusively
comprises the tail and the dorsal fillets while the rest may be fed back to the crocodiles”.18 Another very
recent book on alternative food source which totally ignored the crocodile farms and market in China
acknowledged crocodile meat as “a good source of protein” for premium market19, but also considered
tail to be the most valuable part, and “legs with less value”20 . Such studies demonstrated how loosely the
global market for alligator and crocodile products is internally communicated. How things would be
different if the researchers find out that skins are kept in many Chinese alligator and crocodile recipes,
15
Lane; D.V.M. and King 1996. “Alligator Production in Florida”,
See Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries,website: http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/generalalligator-information
16
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). 2007. “Public Health Risks Involved in the Human
Consumption of Reptile Meat - Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Biological Hazards.” EFSA Journal 5
(11): 578.
17
18
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). 2007. ibid.
Lorenzo et al. ed. 2019. More than Beef, Pork and Chicken – The Production, Processing, and Quality
Traits of Other Sources of Meat for Human Diet, P389, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
19
20
Lorenzo et al. ed. 2019. ibid. P389.
feet and paws are actually the most expensive parts on Chinese market, and people may throw away the
fillets when the soups are ready?
The 2017 Florida Alligator Hunting Survey also tells us a different story. In the 2,015 responses collected,
18.19% people discarded the alligator hide(s), but only 0.41% discarded the alligator meat.21 The
abundant alligator population in southern US made the alligator meat much less a premium market
product. Deep fried, grilled and roasted alligator meat are the most common recipes in the southern states.
When asked about their impression of the alligator recipes in the US, none of the people I asked consider
the recipes as nutritious or tonic as the Chinese recipes. Zhang Xinyu, a Guangzhou local told me “the
nutrition will be lost when it is deep fried”. But alligator meat are continuously made into snacks that can
be found on food festivals, street food trucks and common restaurants in Florida, while China breeding
and importing considerable number of crocodiles and alligators to satisfy a luxurious gustatory or
psychological needs for general health.
Food tradition and habits not only shape the market but also the connection between human and the
companion species they are living with. Farmed alligators and crocodiles are dangerous in many ways,
however they are so well controlled in what Sandilands claims to be the neoliberal biopolitical universe.
While Sandilands encourage us to think as a plant, the cumulative living force suggested by Marder for
these carnivorous animals simply denigrated to nutritive vegetate state22 for humans to harvest,
locomotions and sensitivities are not important for the farmed crocodiles and alligators, as long as they
grow in farms like trees in forest. And of course, the industry was made possible at the expense of another
level of denigration of the animals that were fed to the alligators, and the plants fed to these animals.
Interspecies hierarchy is undeniable and inevitable in this system, the animal multicellularity meetings
See 2017 Florida Alligator Hunting Report: https://myfwc.com/media/15098/alligator-huntingsurvey-2017.pdf
21
Sandilands. 2017. “Vegetate”, in Veer Ecology: A Companion for Environmental Thinking, P17,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
22
will never produce entity that would hold things together 23 in a harmonious way. Although we no longer
need to follow the 19th century gentlemen diet for a better psychological, aesthetic and moral
complexions24, but still, as Bennett said in his book Vibrant Matters, in the model of eating, human and
nonhuman bodies recorporealize in response to each other, both exercise formative power and both offer
themselves as matter to be acted on. 25 In south US, fried and grilled alligator meat is obviously rich in fat,
an actant inside and alongside the human and nonhuman assemblage that Bennett named “American
consumption”.26 While in south China, the mutual transformation is going on both macro and micro scale,
intaking a species as a nation, intaking the virtual tonic as a human.
Alligator as food, in Manhattan Chinatown
Figure 2: Alligator feet on sale in 59 Bayard Market, New York.
(Photo: Martin Shields)
See Haraway. 2016. Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene, P65. Duke University
Press
23
24
Bennett. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, P43. Durham: Duke University Press.
25
Bennett. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, P49.
26
Bennett. Ibid. P39.
Located at the heart of Manhattan Chinatown, 59 Bayard Market27 is only 500 ft. away from the famous
Doyer Street “Bloody Angle”, where Chinese gang wars used to erupted along its curves. 59 Bayard is
currently the only butcher shop in Manhattan publicly selling alligator meat. A notice can be seen on the
door reads “This shop sells alligator meat” handwritten only in Chinese. For non-Chinese speakers, the
only way they would know is to walk inside and get startled by the row of fresh alligator feet placed on
top of a pile of ice, there are probably also some chunks of alligator meat still attached to the skins right
aside. As discussed previously alligator feet are actually the most expensive on Chinese market, but
considered to be of much less value in the Western food tradition. It makes perfect sense for a Cantonese
immigrants with appetite for alligators that the feet are placed at the most prominent position, let alone the
price is appealing. But at the same time, the display is bizarre, brutal for almost everyone else. At the
moment of astonishment, to explain something unfamiliar with something unknown seems to be an easy
way to relieve the uneasiness. Like the alligator feet on Williamsburg sidewalk, people relate the
unexpected sight to its context, Chinatown. American alligator became Chinese, in a Cantonese shop in
New York.
As DeLanda pointed out, organismic metaphor remains influential in theories about parts and whole, and
it has become even more difficult to eliminate in sociology.28 Under this theory which DeLanda called the
relations of interiority, Chinatown and the alligator meat can be seen as component parts of different
levels in the seamless whole of New York City. The whole does not possess a organic unity, and when
isolated, each part is self-subsistent and ceased to be what it is, their relations are external to each other,
as alligator feet should stay in the Chinatown part of New York, rather than on the sidewalk of
Williamsburg. Hegel and his followers developed the relations of interiority by arguing that the whole
process the inextricable unity in which there is a strict reciprocal determination between the parts, as
when people took it for granted that Chinatown is the place for exotic food ingredients, including
American alligator meat. But in fact, the alligator feet in 59 Bayard are themselves indicators of a set of
27
It also has a more traditional Chinese shop name, De Chang (德昌).
DeLanda. 2006. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity, P9, London:
Continuum
28
alternative interactions among the components, as well as the components relation to the whole. In the
assemblage theory of Deleuze, which DeLanda considers to be the the relations of exteriority, component
part of an assemblage maybe detached and plugged into a different assemblage with different interactions,
the relations have autonomy that can change without the terms changing.29 In semiotic theory, the
autonomous relations are the signs as relatum mediates between an object and an interpretant as part of a
single triadic relation.30 The indexical possibilities of alligator meat in different parts of New York
demonstrated the different interactions and relations within the assemblage. More importantly, in the
assemblage theory of Deleuze properties of the component parts can never explain the relations which
constitute a whole, although they may be the result of the exercise of a component’s capacities31 . And in
Chinatown in particular, although it is the only place selling alligator meat, it cannot be counted for
constructing the city’s relationship with alligator meat at all.
For Chinese people who recently came to the US, a visit to Chinatown evokes more feelings of nostalgia
rather than homesick as none of the narrow streets, crowded shops and banners in traditional characters
and vintage design can be easily found in China any more. The juxtaposition of the bubble tea shop with
stylish deco and the teahouse that has kept the same interior since 1930s made Chinatown a place of
compressed time and space. According to McTaggart, time is the combination of “A Series” and “B
Series”32, while there will be no time without place, place is an irreplaceable factor in phenomenon of
time.33 What kind of part did alligator played in the history of Chinatown?
Mid 19th century witnessed the dramatic increase of Chinese population in both east and west coast of
US. Manhattan Chinatown was the home for more than 2,000 Chinese immigrants in the 1870s,
29
DeLanda. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity, P11.
Watts. 2008. “On Mediation and Material Agency in the Peircean Semeiotic”, in Material Agency,
Malafouris and Knappett, eds. P190.
30
31
DeLanda. Ibid. P11.
Casey. 1993. Getting back into place: Toward a renewed understanding of the place-world, P20,
Indiana University Press
32
33
Casey. Getting back into place: Toward a renewed understanding of the place-world, P21.
comparing to approximately 150 in 1959,34 very rare material was left about the daily life of these early
refugees from China. However the Chinatown in San Francisco was much larger in scale, 7,500 Chinese
were living in the neighborhood by the end of 1870s. From the very beginning, Chinatown has been a
sign of mystery, exotic curiosities and chaos, one of the favorite subject in literature and popular culture.
October 1875, the Lippincott’s Magazine of Popular Literature and Science published the article written
by J. W. Ames, “A day in Chinatown” featured on his tour “as visitors without prejudice” in the San
Francisco Chinatown during Chinese New Year 35. After seeing the convivial crowds on the street, visited
several apartments and tried opium, in the evening, escorted by a police officer who speaks fluent
Chinese, Ames entered a drug store, where he was shown some gallipots, “quaint little earthen vessels
with red labels in character—contain such sovereign remedies as alligator’s gall, ass’s glue, the flesh of
dogs, and many other specifics that a scientific mind along could appreciate.”36 This is probably the
earliest record of alligator products sold in a US Chinatown, but as it was in a drug store in San Francisco,
the “alligator’s gall” is more likely made from crocodiles of southeast Asia and prepared in China. Ames
and his friends “looked and wondered with such faith and reverence as was in us”, however not all
Americans at the time had equal confidence for reptile products as medicine. In his book on New York
Chinatown published in 1898, Louis Joseph Beck concluded that “in almost every case of sickness,
whether from a headache, broken arm or leg, fracture of the skull, or any other sickness or injury, a
decoration of herbs and reptiles (lizards, snake skins and mud turtles being principally used) is
administered to the patient.” 37 It is interesting how reptiles including alligators were mentioned in these
articles to indicate that the author trusted or trusted not such ingredients can be effective. In Piercean
Semiotics, representation as character of a thing, for the production of a certain mental effect, may stand
34
See Kwong. 1996. The New Chinatown, New York: Hill and Wang.
See Ames. 1875. "A Day in Chinatown" Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science
(1871-1885), 10, 495. In the article, Ames claimed it was the year 4511 of the Chinese era, however year
4511 in Chinese Xuanyuan calendar should be 1814. Ames clearly calculated it wrong.
35
36 Ames.
"A Day in Chinatown”, P6/7.
Beck. 1898. New York's Chinatown: an historical presentation of its people and places, P327. New
York: Bohemia Pub. Co.
37
in place for another thing,38 here different interpretant worked on the same object, alligators and reptiles
became the representamen, or the sign.
Over the time in the guidance to Chinatown food has always been the focus, however in the lists made by
the authors of everything they thought worth mentioning, alligator meat was never on them. Arnold
Genthe’s famous photo book of New York Chinatown included a picture of a panther on San Francisco
Chinatown market “for the highbinder’s feast of the uncooked meat” 39 but no evidence of alligator
products was shown. In 1915 when Angus Macnore visited the New York Chinatown he had dinner in a
fine Chinese restaurant, where waiters in traditional Chinese clothing handed them special menu card
with stuffed frogs, roasted mice, parrot’s tongues etc.40 no alligator was on that menu either. Macnore
went with the famous course “Chop-suey” which, like the orange chicken, is an invented Chinese cuisine.
In his book published in 1931, Rian James enumerated bamboo shoots, soybeans, shrimps on strings,
polly seeds, odd-looking plucked game birds, eels, dried fish, lichee nuts, aromatic teas, water chestnuts,
cumquats and almost everything he saw in Manhattan Chinatown41, we have reason to believe that
alligators were not on the market at the time. In fact, throughout the 20th century alligators were never
mentioned in any food guidance of any kind about Chinatown, and none of the papers on the food habits
of Chinese immigrants included alligator products. 42 However in 2003, Myra Alperson, the author of
Nosh New York found “alligator meat, turtle and frogs’ legs” in Hong Kong Supermarket (109 East
See Peirce. 1895-6. “That Categorical and Hypothetical Propositions are one in essence, with some
connected matters”. MS [R] 787.
38
39
Genthe.1913. Old Chinatown, P149, New York: Mitchell Kennerley.
Macnore. 1915. "A Visit to New York's Chinatown." The Wooden City: A Journal for British Prisoners
of War, Sep 15, 45.
40
41
James. 1931. All about New York: an intimate guide, P243, New York: The John Day company.
See Sayres. 1944. Food facts to help sell grocery products in the greater New York market. P24-25,
New York: The Paul Sayres company; Porterfield. 1951. “The Principal Chinese Vegetable Foods and
Food Plants of Chinatown Markets.” Economic Botany 5, no. 1 (1951): 3-37; Newman. 1980. "Chinese
Immigrant Food Habits: A Study Of The Nature And Direction Of Change." Order No. 8110674, New
York University and Fu. 1995. "Variations in Trading Practices between Buyers and Sellers in the
Chinatown Vegetable Market, New York City." Order No. 9618856, Rutgers The State University of New
Jersey - New Brunswick.
42
Broadway at Pike Street), the very starting point of her tour in Chinatown.43 Following this, are the
photos shared online about people’s encounter with alligator meat in Chinatown markets, which, happens
to be in the same time period when alligator farms started out in China and also roughly meet with the
pinnacle of the nouvelle Cantonese cuisine.
As Jonathan Kennedy wrote in his dissertation, the rattlesnakes in Manhattan Chinatown may well
represent the medicinal practice of laborers from 19th century rural Guangdong, although little
information exists regarding the potential culinary uses of the ingredient in 19th century can be found. 44
But as a historically imported ingredient in Chinese food and medical traditions, and evidence have
shown in above discussions, we may conclude that alligator meat as food source, was introduced into
Chinatown market over the past few decades, an indicator of the changing food habits in mainland China,
as a result of factors such as economical development, commercial propaganda and globalized enthusiasm
for healthy lifestyle all fused together.
Alligator as urban myth, in New York
It has become very obvious that Chinese’s enthusiasm for alligators is based on the legend of its tonic
effect and exotic taste, and the feeling of satisfaction after conquering a dangerous Other and absorb it
into the assemblage of Self. But for New Yorkers, alligators appeared in the city means much more than
southern snacks or nouvelle Cantonese cuisine, but the nightmare of their urban life, the exact Other that
should be excluded after decades living in one of the most famous urban myth of New York, the Sewer
Alligator. Despite all the efforts scientists made to assure the public that alligators cannot survive the
sewer system of New York because of the pollution and lack of lights, residents of the city never failed to
find evidence proving alligators do exist in the city, alive or not, in parts or as a whole, above or under
ground, to keep the legend alive and popular.
43 Alperson.
2003. Nosh New York: The Food Lover's Guide to New York City's Most Delicious
Neighborhoods, P193, New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.
Kennedy. 2016. “Fan and Tsai: Food, Identity, and Connections in the Market Street Chinatown”, P182,
Order No. 10249424, Indiana University.
44
The most cited story of sewer alligator’s debut in New York is the 1935 New York Times news with the
headline “Alligator found in uptown sewer”45 , the said to be 8 feet long and very sick alligator was killed
by several young boys after discovering it when they were shoveling snow. Although it was immediately
assumed that it only had a brief stay in the sewer, an imaginary scene of a “rather threatening numbers”46
of alligators crawling in the New York underground sewers soon went virus. It was assumed that sewer
alligators were pets because they used to be sold as souvenirs for $1.5 each. And the scene developed into
a whole process from irresponsible owners discarded their pet alligators down into sewer because they
became too large (sounds familiar?), to the alligators became albino due to the lack of light underground
environment, even the steam pipes on the streets were related to the livelihood of sewer alligators in some
versions. More and more details have been adding to the legend despite the fact that the Harlem alligator
was found in icy water, there is no way it could had survived the long and dreadful New York winter. It is
worth noticing that the Harlem alligator in 1935 was not the first sewer alligator ever, as early as 1907,
New York Times reported the story of a New Jersey man Charles Gidds found a young alligator when
clearing the sewer47, it was learned later that the alligator escaped from its owner a week ago, who then
welcomed its return. The New Jersey sewer alligator was much less legendary, as it was all clear where
the alligator came from and how it ended back home, the story left little space for imagination. Similar
stories were also reported in Florida and Louisiana but as these states have long history hunting and
farming alligators none of them aroused panic as the Harlem alligator did. But they were all considered to
be scattered evidence that contributed to the New York myth.
The Sewer Alligator legend was fully developed in Robert Daley’s book The World Beneath the City
published in 1959, with Chapter 17 to be the sequel story of the 1935 news from an alternative
perspective, and written in a typical journalism style. The protagonist in this story is Teddy May, the
45
See New York Times, issue Feb. 10, 1935.
See Berger. 1957. “About New York; Farms and Dairy Herds Still Thrive in City, but Alligator
Population Dwindles”, New York Times, Nov. 8.
46
47
See New York Times. 1907. “Alligator in the Sewer” The Washington Post (1877-1922), Jul 22, 6.
superintendent of sewer inspectors, who did not believe there could be alligators in the sewers when the
inspectors reported the situation to him, and went down the sewers to prove he was right. The story then
dramatically jumped to the scene when Teddy returned to his office, trying to forget what he saw down
there, “the sight of alligators serenely paddling around his sewers”.48 The story has a satisfactory ending
with all the sewer alligators removed, either succumbed to rat poison, or washed out to the sea (although
they were freshwater alligators), or died in the pipes or under rifles. Every detail in the story was drawn
from the scattered news of alligators found in city, the time in accordance with the 1935 Harlem alligator
story, location same as the New Jersey alligator news, and people’s reaction at certain level of disgust
restrained within the overall composedness. However although the alligators were both removed in real
life as well as the claimed to be non-fictional book of Daley, the imaginary scene of alligator paddling
around sewers itself became a sign.
In 2000, a man purchased a snakehead fish from Manhattan Chinatown, then flipped it into a pond in
Crofton when “it outgrew its welcome”, two years later when northern snakehead fishes started to show
up in a Maryland pond, the situation was immediately considered as “pretty much the same way the
original sewer alligator wound up in New York”.49 The northern snakehead fishes do resemble alligators
in a way as they are not only carnivorous but can also walk on land, but the northern snakehead fishes,
due to their potential threat to local ecology system, are listed as invasive species by US Department of
Agriculture.50 While alligators as a local species, only exists and threatening in the urban legend stories.
However the other thing these two situations in common, is the fact that the snakehead fish was indeed
tossed out by its owner as a no longer wanted pet, which seem to be the manifestation of a foretell about
the retribution of irresponsibility. The Sewer Alligator legend varied in multiple versions but collectively
belied a constant anxiety and fear of the potential consequence of humans behavior. When any sign of
alligator appears in the city, it became indexical for an urban life that lacks space to raise large alligators,
lacks time to discard the alligators properly, and lacks the sense of responsibility to finish something you
48
See Daley. 1959. World Beneath the City, Chapter 17, J.B. Lippincott.
49
Perez& Sisk. 2002. “Fierce Fish Dragnet: Chinatown Monster Loose." New York Daily News, Jul 13, 3.
50
See https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/profile/northern-snakehead
started. Sewer alligators exists in the virtually negative space of the city, the sewer system for all
unnecessary debris that we do not want to face. But just like Bennett quoted Sullivan on trash “a vital
materiality can never really be thrown ‘away’, for it continues its activities even as a discarded or
unwanted commodity”,51 it was the “thing-power” of discarded alligators and pretty much everything else
we junked to make room for new ones, what Bennett described as “hyperconsumptive”, that actually kept
the Sewer Alligator legend alive all these years.
Apart from the spatial hierarchy that defined sewer alligator’s relation with human, the impact of human
activity through time also played a part to increase the tension. The vitality of discarded alligators lasted
long enough to resurge as a nightmare, even though the alligators were eliminated in all the stories, as the
volume of commodities is constantly growing, New York is forever caught in the period of incubation. In
2001, the artist Tom Ottherness installed a series of “Life Underground” sculptures on the subway
platforms of the 8th Ave. and 14th St. station, among them is an alligator emerging from a sewer lid,
seized in its jaws a figure trying to escape. The figure whose head appeared to be a bag of dollars is
borrowed from Thomas Nast’s satirical depiction of Boss Tweed.52 Interestingly, if compare the Sewer
Alligator timeline with the trajectory of anthropocene theory, the legend spans across the period of “The
Great Acceleration”, when births consistently outnumber death in urban environment, and the habitat of
human species transited from village to city in a large scale.53 The American materialism requires buying
ever-increasing numbers of products purchased in ever-shorter cycles54, but is it possible for Sewer
Alligator also go down to history like Boss Tweed if we go further as the stewards of the earth system?
Now let’s go back to the alligator feet in Manhattan Chinatown, it is confusing as it is both the reason and
the result of multiple kinds of modification. As a sign, it provides indexical information on various
51
Bennett, ibid, P6.
See Blakinger. 2016. “The story behind the strange 8th Ave. subway statues and the cartoons that
inspired them”, New York Daily News, (Online) Feb 16, 2016.
52
Steffen, Crutzen, McNeill. 2008. The anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of
nature?AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment36 (8), 617.
53
54
Bennett, ibid, P5.
evidences of our relation with other species, as terminal of the domestic fresh products supply chain,
tentacular of a food tradition, objectification of a long-time fear, extended mind for better health. They
may have been shipped to Manhattan Chinatown only from New Jersey but it still have the agency
effecting in through time and space.
Conclusion
In this paper I tried to discuss the alligator meet sold in Manhattan Chinatown as a node communicating
time and space. First I compared the global tradition and trade of alligator products in China and the US.
There are two kinds of alligators in the world, the Chinese alligator is listed endangered species, but
China has been importing and farming crocodiles in an increasingly large scale as expensive supplement.
The American alligator is widely farmed and hunted in the southern states of the US but have much
different target market. However Manhattan Chinatown has became one of the few places in New York
that alligator meat is sold and displayed as novel and exotic as other Chinese food ingredients, in part
three I listed and analyzed all the available historical sources about the reptile products in Chinatown, to
prove that alligator meat was introduced into Chinatown market over the past few decades, it is an
indication of the changing food habits in mainland China. The last section is on the alligator as urban
legend in the context of New York City, which further complicated the situation of the Manhattan
Chinatown alligator meat. The fear of Sewer Alligators’s resurge in the city belied a constant anxiety and
fear of the potential consequence of humans behavior, which is entangled with factors economical
development, commercial propaganda and globalized enthusiasm for healthy lifestyle at this turning point
of anthropocene.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Chen Wenjian, Helen Diao, Jason Hwang, Liu Shu, Phyllis Xu, Wang Dong, Zhan
Wei, Zhang Xinyu among many others for telling me their stories and efforts reaching out for their
families and friends to contribute the materials in my paper. Special thanks to Phyllis Xu who visited
markets and shops in Hong Kong to search for alligator products and took photos for me.
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