Avenue D Man is a New York City legend that is beginning to fall into a mythical drivel because no real documentation of his case exists, making his story one primarily told through word of mouth. Just like with all oral tradition things have been added at random, according to the teller's taste, obscuring the true facts. Here is the story of Avenue D Man stripped down to the bare essentials, excluding any subsidiary information that could considered add-on mistruths.
A junkie overdosed on heroin in an Avenue D shooting gallery in August of 1984. The junkie was soon rushed to a local hospital, but nothing could be done for him and he soon fell into a deep coma. When no one came to claim the junkie, who was by then being referred to as "Avenue D Man" because had had no identification on him at all, he was thrown on life support and basically forgotten about.
That is he was forgotten about until a night in July of 1999, when nurses were running around claiming that Avenue D Man had disappeared. When the police arrived on the scene they decided that Avenue D Man had, in fact, unplugged all of the tubes leading into his body and walked out of the clinic himself. The police were baffled but no further investigation took place, which they would later regret.
In the months that followed D Mans escape from the hospital many weird and frightening crimes began to happen. A few included...
- The bombing of a music store by an unidentified crack head.
- The kidnapping of a junkie from the same studio Avenue D Man was found in.
- Mysterious upside down, finger-painted cellphones appearing on the walls of various hospitals around the area.
Even with all of these strange events were basically directly linked to Avenue D Man the police force continued to do nothing. Not until September of 1999, when the police were doing rounds at local buildings assumed to be crack houses, did the police finally find Avenue D Man, purely by accident. When they found Avenue D Man he was in another coma, and was taken to another hospital where he remains on life support to this day.
The various add-ons that this legend receives include the crimes that D Man created; sometimes more violent and bloody incidents are added to give D Man a psychotic feeling to him. Another popular change to the story is what D Man finger-paints on the walls of the hospitals. However, it is usually some sort of modern day electronic device, such as a computer or even a blender sometimes.
However, sometimes larger changes are added into the mix. A few times I heard that Avenue D Man killed everyone in the hospital before leaving, which was, once again, probably added to make the story seem scarier than it really was. Another major difference sometimes added is that Avenue D Man was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. But I’ve only heard that one once or twice, and it was pretty out-of-nowhere.
Although his existence has never been proven his name creeps into daily conversation from time to time. Once when I lost one of my favorite CDs my friend said to me, "Looks like it escaped...it’s probably out looking for more heroin."