Thomas J. Lueck
(copy) and Tyler Hicks (images) of my hometown paper have reported that in the most prominent, and well-kept, public park in New York City, rats play as though they were squirrels. Notwithstanding municipal efforts to persuade them to relocate. From November 10, 2007, “Where the Rats Come Out to Play”:
The rat that was circling André Thomas’s feet was big and brazen, measuring more than a foot from the tip of its tail to a pointed snout that arched upward to the aroma of Mr. Thomas’s ham and cheese sandwich.
The encounter might not have seemed all that unusual to many New Yorkers, who have become wearily accustomed to rats bounding along subway tracks or lurking about garbage bins, usually after dark.
But this rat sighting came as a shock to Mr. Thomas because of when and, especially, where it took place — 2 p.m. on a brilliant fall afternoon while he sat on a bench in City Hall Park, a nine-acre jewel of the municipal park system that underwent a $30 million renovation in 1999. The park is a cornerstone of the city’s efforts to revive Lower Manhattan.
“At first I thought it was a squirrel,” Mr. Thomas said as he strode away. “Isn’t this where the mayor works?”
Mr. Thomas’s rodent experience was hardly unusual. If he had looked under the park’s benches and around its meticulously cropped foliage, he would have spotted at least six other rats scurrying around, unconcerned about the humans all around.
The infestation of rats in City Hall Park, clearly an embarrassment to the city, was acknowledged in interviews by senior officials of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the city’s lead agency for rodent control, and the Department of Parks and Recreation.
“It’s just a big issue down there and we all recognize it,” said Jessica Leighton, the health department’s deputy commissioner for environmental health. Adrian Benepe
