Woody Allen famously said "If I got a paper cut, that’s a tragedy. If you fell down an open manhole and died, that's comedy."
There's a Woody Allen movie where he suddenly falls into an open manhole. Can't remember which one, but I saw it in the theater in London (for some reason), and the audience that hadn't been laughing at any of the numerous verbal jokes laughed heartily. Slapstick is a universal language. And yet some people reject slapstick. They think it's cheap or mean or something. Why would you laugh when someone falls?
Thanks to tcrosse for reminding me of that old quote.
ALSO: Was it Woody Allen who said that or Mel Brooks?
Here's the Quote Investigator article on the subject, "Quote Origin: Tragedy Is When I Cut My Finger; Comedy Is When You Fall Down a Manhole/Mel Brooks? Carl Reiner? Betty Brainerd? Joey Bishop? Kenneth Tynan? S. Sylvan Simon? Anonymous?" Woody's not even on that list!On a 1962 "2000-Year-Old-Man" recording, Brooks said, "To me, tragedy is if I’ll cut my finger. That’s tragedy. It bleeds, and I’ll cry, and I’ll run around, and I’ll go into Mount Sinai for a day and a half. I’m very nervous about it. And to me, comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die. What do I care? That’s comedy. My finger is important."
By the way, I think the Woody Allen movie that made Londoners laugh was "Bananas," but I couldn't find a clip. And I think — as long as I'm correcting things — that the person who fell into the manhole in that movie was not the Woody Allen character but a minor character — someone expendable.
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How long did people stand around letting her cry out?
"...said Carl Wood, a bystander who watched as the horror unfold"
While a fall like that could be tragic, if she survived the fall, it wouldn't be hard to get her out (those holes are designed to give people access to the underground systems, there's even a built-in ladder).
"She was just in the hole screaming that she was dying. Over and over she was like, 'I’m dying, I’m dying.'"
If you can say "I am choking" you aren't choking either.
She probably succumbed to high temperatures.
…what’s cool is when methane or an ng leak fire makes them wobble off. never seen one blow but can imagine the sight..
I believe it was Mel Brooks who said that tragedy is when I cut my finger; comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
I'm surprised this doesn't happen daily, as most people have their noses in their phones while walking.
She probably succumbed to high temperatures.
Maybe it was the albino sewer alligators.
….there’s some really really big roaches down there, too…
As Tim notes, they could hear her, they know there was nothing preventing them access, and they did nothing. It's NYC, so on brand.
Rats are bigger than roaches and have bigger mouths.
I was an EMT for five years. Moving an injured person without training and proper equipment can kill them. This is particularly the case in a fall.
The Times writes:
"Falling into an open manhole is one of the many urban nightmares New Yorkers worry about, along with falling through grates on the street, getting pushed onto the subway tracks and getting hit by a falling air-conditioner, among others."
Decades ago I went out to get lunch around 7th Ave and 56st. A sheet of plywood blew off the 50-something floor of an office tower under construction. It sailed down gracefully until it a decapitated a random pedestrian about a block away from me.
Boston's John Hancock Building was notorious for having 65 falling windows in the 1970s. More than 10K windows had to be replaced.
Who walks without looking where they're going, especially in a New York street? R.I.P.
Just when you think you’ve made it, driving and parking a Mercedes near Park Ave in New York, you step into an open manhole and die. Count every day and be thankful.
This happened a couple of streets over from me...
Manhole appears to dance during storm
Aggie said...
Who walks without looking where they're going, especially in a New York street? R.I.P.
5/20/26, 8:19 AM
She got out of her car...and dropped. She wasn't walking
This is what struck me about the article. I had to read halfway down to find out she died. Talk about bad writing. The headline should read "Woman Falls to Death in open manhole cover".
Often times a 10-15 foot fall wont kill you - it all depends on how you land. Obviously, she would've been completely unprepared for the drop.
Mamdani’s city. Mamdani’s fault.
Amazing that someone so homely has such a beautiful daughter in law. The looks of the kids will be a real crap shoot.
Wonder why she parked so far away from the curb, that's why the manhole came into play.
Here’s the EMT approach to this. Assess first. Use the proper back board. Strap fall victim firmly into board to prevent any body movement. Only then do you attempt to move them.
Just for the record, my wife laughs a hard uproarious belly laugh when I trip or fall. Which...if you knew me, is a semi-regular feature. I twice fell down a flight of stairs, once at home (unhurt), once on vacation (broken ankle), and both times, while those around were horrified, my wife was bent over howling with laughter. The good news is, she thinks I'm funny.
She got out of her car...and dropped. She wasn't walking
I agree with your response, Wendy; but when I saw this story last night, my first thought was who drives their car over to an open manhole cover? But now I know. Grandma.
Assess first.
I agree with your previous comment that moving a person from a fall from height is bad, but standing around and not assessing?
If turning multi-axle vehicles can dislodge a manhole cover, why are they not more securely locked down in situations where that could happen? It’s a known risk that was not mitigated.
A 15 foot fall can easily kill you - in my trade they are treated, by definition, as major trauma and extensively evaluated even if there is no overt sign of that. But such a fall would be quite unlikely to kill you that quickly. I have to guess that some environmental element down there killed her.
Interesting that that's a Woody Allen quote. Like tcrosse, I too remember it as a Mel Brooks quote.
"Interesting that that's a Woody Allen quote. Like tcrosse, I too remember it as a Mel Brooks quote."
My having written that doesn't mean it's true. All I can say is that if I put something that long in quotes, I had a source. If it was from memory, it would have been presented as a paraphrase. But my source could have been wrong.
You don't need a 15' straight fall to have a miserable death. The star of the "American Hot Rod" reality TV show, Boyd Coddington, reportedly died after falling down a staircase. IIRC, at the time they mentioned a perforated intestine leading to complications. It wasn't instant, but it was fatal.
Madmanni (D-Islamic theocracy) has no job experience... doing anything.
The post modern age in leftist world = all frauds and no accountability. chi coms smile
See the added material in the post on the source of the quote.
There is no parking on 5th avenue however this penalty seems extreme
Here's a clip of Mel Brooks explaining that quote further, from a 2013 documentary. ("We like other people -- we do. But if we look in the mirror and think about ourselves, it's a deep love.")
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/mel-brooks-film-excerpt-the-difference-between-comedy-tragedy-is/2585/
"but when I saw this story last night, my first thought was who drives their car over to an open manhole cover? But now I know. Grandma."
You're picturing a bad driver? I'm looking at a picture of the parked car — https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/donike-gocaj-dies-manhole-fall-new-york-9350mxp5s — and the car is completely inside the parking lane, maybe 2-feet closer to the curb than the white line for the lane. The manhole in question straddles that line. The street is black, the hole might have looked black.
You drive your Mercedes Benz up to Tiffany's and hop out. You don't think maybe there's a hole right there.
I agree that you should always look where you are about to step. We can all learn to be more careful.
It's a good set up though.
"Grandma falls down a sewer..........."
Amazing that someone so homely has such a beautiful daughter in law. The looks of the kids will be a real crap shoot.
Ugly fathers frequently have beautiful kids.
I just rewatched the scene in Bananas (it is at exactly the 19-minute mark). Fielding Mellish (Allen) falls into the manhole exactly the way the woman in the news did! He parked on the street, exited from his car, and fell straight into the manhole.
"I had to read halfway down to find out she died."
Maybe it's been edited, but what I read started out, "A devoted mother died...."
Other commenters are asking why no one helped, but the article says that one person got a ladder that was too short, and another tried to lower himself into the hole so she could grab his legs.
What a horrible way to die.
Many years ago I read an article where a reporter interviewed a stunt woman. According to the stunt woman one of the most dangerous stunts is falling down an open manhole. Apparently when we humans start to fall we have a strong tendency to look down — with a cracked skull on the metal edge of the manhole as the likely result. It could be that a cranial injury contributed to her death.
Leland said...
“As Tim notes, they could hear her, they know there was nothing preventing them access, and they did nothing. It's NYC, so on brand.”
People did try to help her, but apparently couldn’t get to her. I read that they dangled one guy down the hole by his legs hoping he could reach her and pull her out, but something went wrong and he had to be rescued. Other bystanders tried to drop a ladder down to her, but either the hole was too narrow or the ladder too wide. The idea that people just stood there doing nothing while she died is absurd.
I saw this story and wondered how it could have happened. It never occurred to me that a heavy truck could have popped the manhole out. One of the commentors on the news story I saw said, "We all know it was a kid's prank," but I doubted that because manholes are so heavy and difficult to remove.
As to the question of rescuing her, only the first responders could have done that. As a rule, when someone falls they need to be left in place until they can be evaluated by medical staff. (If they're bleeding out or drowning, that makes it different.) If you don't have the proper equipment and training, you could cause someone serious harm by moving them the wrong way after a fall. And you should never go into an underground confined space without proper ventilation equipment. The air down there might not be safe to breathe.
I took an appellate practice class in law school. The case we studied involved the road defect statute that partially abrogates state sovereign immunity under a damages cap.
My appellate brief included a comparison of two obscure cases that involved pedestrians who fell down open manhole covers, something like 70 years apart, to trace the evolving contours of the statute. One case ruled it a road defect, one did not. As I recall, both cases were decided by the state supreme and appeals courts under the law in effect at the time so as to deny each plaintiff recovery.
Regarding popping out because of a passing truck -- manholes are a big deal with Formula 1, IndyCar and other street races. Race cars generate a lot of wind physics and suction, so they must be secured via bolts or welding.
Barney Frank day...obvious jokes...ugg....I guess Althouse planned it that way.
Time for a "Missing Manhole Cover Hotline."
Driving in NYC can be a nerve-wracking experience for out-of-towners. It can put you on edge. You're focused on finding a spot and parking, but also unfocused on other things going on around you. Looking down when you get out isn't on your mind.
Mel Brooks said it, but he and Woody and Neil Simon and Carl Reiner were all writers on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows," all shooting ideas off each other. The origin could have been something he heard in the writers' room years before the record.
They don’t put the fact that she died in the fall in the headline because they want you to read the article.
According to People Magazine, the NYC medical examiner listed the causes of death as scald burns with inhalational thermal injury and blunt force trauma of torso. So I guess it was a steam tunnel. Con Ed doesn’t just provide electricity - it pumps steam throughout Midtown, as another utility service. And a system that old and big is going to have leaks.
That has to suck balls, getting scalded to death.
https://people.com/cause-of-death-revealed-grandma-died-after-falling-into-uncovered-manhole-nyc-11979445
CC, JSM
They don’t put the fact that she died in the fall in the headline because they want you to read the article.
Oh, so news is a mystery puzzle now? THanks.
Also "victim still in scalding-hot steam and water" would be one of those exceptions to "don't move a fall victim." CC, JSM
Grandma fell into a open manhole
Stopping by one day at Tiffany's
You can say there's no man named Ed Norton
But for me and Grandpa, we believe.
A follow-up article in the NY Post said that the woman died from a combination of blunt trauma and burns, including "inhalational thermal injuries" from breathing steam. A truly awful way to go.
In 1990s, a friend witnessed a man get decapitated by a massive icicle broken loose from the roof of the Neiman Marcus building in Chicago. A known winter hazard, icicle-break injuries aren't uncommon near downtown high-rise buildings in the winter months after a major snowfall. Most high-rise buildings put out "Icicle Warning" pedestrian signs, asserting the warning is sufficient liability protection against subsequent personal injury lawsuits.
Have I missed the explanation -- or is no one else wondering what this woman from Briarcliff Manor (30+ miles and a 1-hour drive away) was doing in mid-Manhattan parking her Mercedes-Benz at 11:20 pm near a Cartier's that had been closed for hours? On a Monday night? If that is indeed the same car in the photo, it is also several feet away from the curb. What was going on that led to this freak accident?
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