Making a monkey of history

There’s something you should know about journalists: we thrive off weird, quirky stories.

I love covering Oceanside and Island Park, and I know how essential local news is. What happens at school board meetings is important to the community, but that doesn’t make it exciting. Now, if a man in a gorilla suit were to run into the meeting, interrupting it with his shouts of protest, that’s enough excitement and quirkiness to get me through another six months of banality.

It seems the journalist’s love of quirky stories is a long-standing tradition, if an article I found from the New York Times from 1943 is any indication. In my search for more local history, I came across this gem, titled “Shot Ends Chase for Orangutan.”

I knew from only the first sentence of the article that I had found a kindred spirit in this unnamed reporter. He wrote that the 6-year-old orangutan, named Brother, had “…made a monkey out of police for the last week.”

Apparently Brother, “… squat, surly and strong, although only four feet high and weighing only sixty pounds,” broke free of the collar that held him and escaped. He was the pet of a former circus performer and animal trainer, Lucille Busch, who, according to the article, lived at the intersection of New York Avenue and Austin Boulevard in Island Park (perhaps the roads were different then?). Busch had a small roadside stand near her home, and Brother was one of the attractions. Until he threw off the chains of his oppression, that is.

After unshackling himself, Brother laid low, the article says, until hunger got the best of him. One night, he chased a woman through the streets of Island Park. Later that same night, he broke into a chicken coop and “dined extensively.” At least no one in Island Park would have to worry about him breaking into their chicken coops these days.

The article also says that Brother tried to break into a coop of geese, but they drove him off. It seems brother forgot the cardinal rule of being on the lam: don’t mess with geese.

And while Brother was chasing woman and breaking into chicken coops with total disregard for the law, Nassau County Police Officer Charles F. Egan was assigned to find the marauding monkey.