"Doug" wrote in message

stuff snipped

Any possum living in NYC near the subway is going to end up looking
pretty
black, too. I'm thinking Doug saw a possum. But I probably should go to
the
NYC Health Dep't site . . .

OK, maybe it WAS a rat. There's no shortage of hits for "largest rat
ever
found in NYC."

http://i.mediatakeout.com/photo/1314362412big_rat.jpg


http://cdn.mediatakeout.com/50702/sh...ide-brooklyn-h
ousing-project-you-ain-t-gonna-believe-the-size-of-it.html


Robert, you're right. I'll never know either what it was but as I
recall, it was large, well at least the size of a medium dog and it
was kinda blackish in color. The color tho was probably because it
was near a very oily body of water then. I remember thinking why it
would try to eat along side a very oily body of water. The water then
was so badly polluted.

After scanning through a number of sites that claimed to have pictures of
the city's largest rat, I think it's very likely you did see a giant rat. I
really had no idea how bigs rats in NYC actually got until I went looking.

However, that area's close enough to the airport that any number of
non-native animals could have escaped and made their way to where you saw
them. I know around the Miami airport there are thousands of animals that
have escaped from air cargo that aren't native to Florida that cause a lot
of trouble for the native species and local animal control.

When I lived in the restaurant district in DC, I once heard something
scuttling under the bed. I grabbed a flashlight and looked under to see a
cockroach as large as mouse, just waddling across the floor. I couldn't
believe that it was so big I could actually hear it moving around. It was
like that scene from Aliens where the Marine lifts up a suspended ceiling
panel for a look and sees giant bug-like aliens. I moved out shortly after.

--
Bobby G.