The mayor of New York City hates rats. Thatโs no secret. In fact, itโs barely a lede. The hatred runs so deep that Eric Adams has declared his War on Rats a signature initiative of his mayoral administration. And even though his intentions are admirable and the roots of his animosity understandable, from a political and human standpoint, itโs no stretch to say that Hizzoner should have been better advised. After all, whatโs the point of staking a portion of his legacy on a guaranteed L?
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Every New Yorker carries a suitcase full of stories (carry-on, at least) about chance encounters with New York Cityโs most famous rodents. Most of them are exaggerated โ rats the size of dogs being an obvious example โ others hysterical โ the viral video of a small army of rats living under a homeless personโs sheet โ all of them earnest. Mine falls somewhere in between.
It happened in Central Park, sometime after sundown but before midnight during one of those humid summer nights when your shirt needs a good hand-wringing. I set up my tripod against the stones. Not far into the park and could still hear the hum-buzz-and-beep of 60th Street and Lexington Ave. As I finished setting up my camera, a rat popped out from between the rocks at bit at my toes.
Thank God for shell-top Adidas.
***
A rat is not a rat is not a rat. Popular perception of rats that cut across cultures immediately conjures up images of raggedy-robed Europeans from long ago, lying dead in littered streets or dying in dim, rodent-riddled houses. The stink from putrid buboes slithering in the stale air competes with the more common stench of death. Rats = Plague. Right?
But that is a mistaken perception. A misconception.
The rat that carried the fleas that carried the bacteria that caused the disease that killed a third of Europe was the black rat. Rattus rattus. Itโs smaller than the rats New Yorkers are used to. The same can be said for just about any city-dweller anywhere across the globe. These days, the black rat can be found in warm climates anywhere people have laid down roots, except for cities. You wonโt find them there.
Scientists believe they originated somewhere in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia and spread by hitching rides with humans as they moved around and settled in different areas. As weโll see later, rats donโt like to stray too far from home, at least not without the proper coaxing.
By the 1st century AD, Rattus rattus reached the shores of Britain thanks to wonderfully engineered Roman roads. During the 15th century, they stowed away en masse in ship hulls bound for the unexplored shores of the Americas and, once ashore, made themselves at home the way rats do so well.
But thereโs more.
The rat that we all know and loathe, rats like Pizza Rat, are known as brown rats. Theyโre also known as Norwegian rats, as their scientific name, Rattus norvegicus, indicates. The latter is an unfortunate misnomer since the brown rat likely originated in northern China and thereabouts. It spread from there across Asia until it eventually found its way to the western coasts of Europe (and Africa). From the ports of the Old World, New York City ratsโ ancestors drifted along the winds and currents of the Atlantic and joined their darker-coated cousins in the land of the free.
When those first brown rats sauntered off docked ships, black rats must have held their breath in apprehension when they saw their larger-bodied visitors. Unfortunately for Rattus rattus, the upstart new additions to American ecology werenโt interested in peaceful co-existence.
The story of rats in America is a tale of conquest, and Rattus norvegicus โ bigger, badder, and more voracious โ came out on top. In semi-scientific parlance, the brown rat out-competed black rats for available resources, proving invasiveness is in the eye of the beholder.
The moral of the story? New World inhabitants can thank European colonialism for the rat infestations in their building basements.
Horseshoe Crabs. Hoffmanโs Dwarf Centipede. Two-spotted Ladybug Beetle. Common Green Darner Dragonfly. Polyphemus moth. Cabbage White Butterfly. Mourning Cloak Butterfly.
Blue Crabs. Northern Rock Barnacles. Spiny Cheek Crayfish.
American Eel. Striped Bass. Pumpkinseed Sunfish. Bluegills. Largemouth Bass.
American Bullfrog. Fowlerโs Toad. Diamondback Terrapins.
People.
All New York City inhabitants.
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Urbanization affects the evolution of organisms that live in cities. It influences both adaptive evolution through natural selection as well as non-adaptive processes like genetic drift and restricted gene flow. Urban populations often exhibit reduced genetic diversity within populations and greater genetic differentiation between populations compared to their rural counterparts. There is also growing evidence that plant and animal populations experience divergent selection pressures between urban and non-urban environments, leading to adaptive evolution in various traits such as life history, morphology, physiology, behavior, and reproduction.
To date, studies have only examined evolutionary changes within a single city. Research is needed that samples multiple cities to test the generality and convergence of evolutionary processes in response to urbanization.
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One study searched for genetic signatures of adaptation in brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) living in New York City. The authors collected whole genome sequences from 29 NYC rats and scanned for regions of the genome showing signs of recent positive selection. They looked for high-frequency extended haplotypes that could indicate selective sweeps and for genetic differentiation between the NYC rats and a sample from the presumed ancestral range of brown rats in northeast China.
The analyses identified candidate selective sweeps near genes associated with metabolism, diet, the nervous system, and locomotory behavior. Many of the putative sweeps appeared to have begun after the split between the NYC and ancestral Chinese populations. Gene ontology enrichment analysis highlighted genes involved in apoptosis, organ morphogenesis, and axon guidance.
The authors suggest that these results generate hypotheses about adaptive changes in urban rat populations. Potential selected traits include resistance to rodenticides, novel diets, and behavioral differences. However, more research is needed to directly link these genetic signatures to phenotypic adaptations.
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New York City has tried various methods to control its rat population, including poison, reducing street garbage time, and using dry ice on burrows.
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I asked John Kane (BCE, PCQI), National Accounts Entomologist and Quality Manager at Orkin, whatโs the best way to win the Rat War.
According to Kane,
Rats are adaptive and intelligent, making them difficult to get rid of. For example, they can survive without much food and are great foragers.
Rats can also reproduce quickly, with one pregnant female leading to a population of 1,300-5,000 rats in one year according to researchers at Brazilโs Gonรงalo Moniz Research Center, depending on their environment and resources. This quick reproductive rate is one reason why getting rid of rats is so tricky.
There are many small things we can do to prevent them from thriving. Patching up cracks and gaps in buildings, sealing outdoor garbage bins, and alerting local public health authorities of the issue can help limit their spread. Try to notice signs of their presence, like chewed items, urine odor, small black feces (raisin-sized and tapered at one end), and scratching sounds in walls or ceilings.
By noticing signs, acting swiftly, and taking away available food, water, and access to warm housing, rats wonโt be able to stick around long.
In 1923, a Mr. F.W. W. Dawson wrote to the New York Daily News suggesting some methods of eradicating rats and flies. His insights into the struggle against rats remain pertinent, as is the begrudging respect paid to them.
โThere is no use trying to trap rats so long as plenty of rat food is easily accessible. The rat is one of the most cunning and intelligent animals. If liability to protect oneโs self in the midst of an unfavorable environment is a test of intelligence and education, as some university professor has stated, then the ordinary rat ranks above the graduates of Oxford and Berlin, not to mention the Sarbonne [sic] not my own alma mater.
โTherefore, the first step in a rat campaign is to make rat food unavailable for rats.โ
Mr. Dawson then went on to offer his recipe for the best rat poison: one pound barium carbonate to three pounds flour, rolled into balls. Needless to say, it didnโt work.
***
New York City generates approximately 3.9 million tons of food waste each year, which constitutes about 20% of the city’s total waste stream. That amounts to about 10,700 tons of food waste daily. That poses a very basic problem without a solution in sight
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Fifteen years after F.W. Dawsonโs analysis of the rats, writing in the same tabloid, Dr. Irving S. Cutter wrote, โRats are lawless animals. They obey no constitution, no code of ethics. Despite attempts made to capture them, they are smart enough in many instances to outwit their pursuers.โ
While he acknowledges the role of poison in the struggle against Gothamโs premier rodents, he notes that larger infestations call for more drastic measures. In this case, drastic means storing trash in metal containers. Garbage cans. If the rats canโt reach the food, they will starve. At least in theory.
Cutterโs conclusion is drenched in resignation: โEven though we are unable to exterminate these culprits completely, we can at least reduce their number and thereby save from injury valuable merchandise, stored goods, and grains.โ
Not exactly Mel Gibson rallying the troops in Braveheart, is it?
***
Rats have inflicted more harm on the planet than just spreading the plague. Sometimes, they just need a helping hand. Case in point: the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans).
The ecological impact of stowaway rats in ancient Polynesia is a profound example of how human activities inadvertently lead to significant environmental changes. As Polynesians navigated and settled the vast Pacific Ocean, they carried with them not only their essential supplies and domestic animals but also, unintentionally, rats. These rats, primarily of the Polynesian sort, hitched rides on canoes and found new homes on islands that had previously been free of mammalian predators.
The arrival of rats to these isolated ecosystems had catastrophic effects, primarily because these islands had evolved without mammalian predators. The flora and fauna of these islands were thus highly vulnerable. Rats, being opportunistic feeders, preyed upon native bird species, many of which were ground-nesters with no innate defenses against such predators. The eggs and chicks of these birds were easy targets, leading to sharp declines in bird populations. Some species were driven to extinction, reducing biodiversity and altering the ecological balance.
Moreover, rats also competed with native species for food resources. They consumed vast amounts of seeds and fruits, impacting the regeneration of native plants and thus altering the composition of the island forests. This not only affected the plant species directly but also had a cascade effect on the entire ecosystem, affecting everything from soil composition to the insects and birds that depended on specific plants.
The ecological destruction caused by rats in ancient Polynesia is a stark reminder of the unintended consequences of human exploration and colonization and the devastation the hardy rodents can cause.
But they also make great pets.
***
After a couple of centuries of unchecked rodent population growth and decades of municipal fecklessness, the New York Daily News โ bastion of the cityโs venerable tabloids โ took it on themselves to perform their civic duty and dedicate some ink towards enlisting the citizenry in the war against the legions of rats wriggling beneath floorboards and between plaster apartment walls. The editorial crew announced their new initiative with a headline โ NEWS BEGINS WAR TO WIPE OUT RATS, 8 MILLION OF THEM โ that was clear on intent but oddly devoid of the bravado youโd expect from a rag of the people like the News. (The inside headline was equally tentative – THE NEWS OPENS ALL-OUT WAR ON RATS: Starts Do-Itself Extermination Drive.)
After incorrectly stating that there is one rat per New Yorker in the city, the August 4, 1960 announcement found its feet a few paragraphs in with some alarmist fear-mongering: โEveryday in New York, someone is attacked by a rat, and in the past five years nearly 3,000 adults and children have been bitten. Last year, a four-month-old boy died as a result.โ
The Daily Newsโ foray into misconceptions continued unabated. In building the profile of every city dweller’s Public Enemy #1, they incorrectly associated New York City’s rat population – the brown rat – with the bubonic plague. It’s hard to imagine the fact checkers at one of New York’s largest papers making such a basic mistake. Instead, it points to an aspect of the human vs. rat dynamic that is often overlooked. The struggle hits at such a primal level. Arguments for rat annihilation often appeal to emotions more than intellect. Clearly, that’s what the News was doing trying to get a reaction.
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HOW TO FIGHT RATS 101
Rats prefer food, water, and sex. Make the first two hard and they will do less of the third.
***
The New York Daily News thought they had a winning strategy.
The paperโs Brain Trust had a secret weapon: Spanish Harlem gangbangers.
The Daily News sought them out and enlisted them as foot soldiers in its war against rats. Maybe, they reasoned, since disenfranchised neighborhoods suffered the most from rat infestations, why not tell them to handle the problem themselves and save a few bucks in the process. You know, use those baseball bats and knives against the rats.
They made it a contest between gangs. The winners got a big olโ TV because, of course, the boob tube is the obvious path towards enfranchisement or emancipation. You wonder whether the editors at the news understood how deeply offensive their plan was. To be fair, they also offered some sports equipment to the runners-up in the contest. Take that for what it’s worth.
Throughout the summer, Daily News delivery trucks would serve as mobile distribution centers for information and poisons (warfarin, fumarin, or pival) distributed free of charge.
***
Anticoagulant rodenticides, developed primarily to control rodent populations, work by causing internal bleeding. The history of these substances dates back to the 1940s following investigations into why cattle were dying from bleeding disorders in the 1920s and 1930s. It generally happened after eating moldy sweet clover hay. This condition became known as “sweet clover disease.”
In 1933, a Wisconsin farmer named Ed Carlson brought a dead cow, unclotted blood, and moldy hay to Karl Paul Link’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, seeking help. Link and his team, including student assistant Eugen Wilhelm Schoeffel, began investigating the cause of the bleeding disorder. By 1940, after six years of work, Link and his colleagues isolated the compound responsible for the anticoagulant effect. They identified it as 3,3โฒ-methylene-bis(4-hydroxycoumarin), which became known as dicoumarol. Following this discovery, Link and his team synthesized over 100 related compounds with anticoagulant properties.
In 1945, Link considered using a coumarin derivative as a rodenticide. They tested 150 variations of coumarin, and compound number 42 was found to be particularly potent. This compound, number 42, was named “warfarin” after the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which funded the research.
Warfarin was initially marketed as a rodenticide in 1948. By the 1950s, warfarin was extensively employed due to its efficacy in controlling rats without immediate effects, which discouraged bait shyness and allowed more rodents to consume the poison before they began to associate it with illness.
Interestingly, in 1951, after an army inductee attempted suicide with warfarin but recovered fully when treated with vitamin K, studies began on its potential use as a therapeutic anticoagulant.
Warfarin was formally approved for medical use in humans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1954.
***
By the mid-1960s, City Hall’s war against rats was nearing its centennial. While they weren’t winning, they weren’t getting blown away either. The losses came in increments here and there, everyone knew their roles, and two-term mayor Robert Wagner represented more of the same. No harm could be used to describe his approach.
Mayor Wagner declared a war on rats (yet again), dedicating $1 million to fight the good fight. He instructed the Department of Health to clean up infested buildings and bill landlords if they ignored earlier warnings.
In 1967, a news headline screamed, โWeโre Losing the Rat Race.โ
New Yorkers thought they had it bad.
Then John Lindsay happened.
John Lindsay exuded a magnetic allure, often likened to that of a matinee idol rather than a municipal leader. Towering at over six feet tall, his striking presence was accentuated by a trim, athletic build and a poised demeanor that commanded attention. His sharp featuresโpiercing blue eyes and a chiseled jawlineโwere typically framed by a perfectly coiffed head of silver hair, which gleamed under the city lights or in the glare of press cameras.
Lindsay’s public persona was a blend of aristocratic elegance and progressive zeal, embodying the youthful optimism of the 1960s. He was often seen striding confidently through the bustling streets of New York or navigating the turbulent political waters with an effortless charm that endeared him to many. His charisma was palpable, able to draw crowds and sway skeptics with a compelling rhetoric that spoke of hope and unity.
Dressed invariably in impeccably tailored suits, Lindsay presented a figure of modern leadership, infused with a sense of adventure and a daring readiness to tackle the cityโs most daunting challenges. This swashbuckling approach to governance, combined with his debonair style, made John Lindsay not just a politician but a cultural icon of his time, symbolizing a new era of political engagement.
During Mayor John Lindsay’s administration in New York City from 1966 to 1973, sanitation workers faced numerous health and safety challenges. The working conditions were often poor, with inadequate equipment and facilities, contributing to physical strain and injuries. Workers were routinely exposed to various hazardous materials found in waste, increasing their risk of infections and chronic diseases.
This era was also marked by significant labor unrest, including notable strikes, as workers demanded better pay, benefits, and conditions; the 1968 strike, in particular, brought widespread attention to their plight. Protective measures and regulations were less stringent and less enforced at the time, leading to higher risks of injury and illness.
Additionally, the demanding nature of the job, combined with long hours and low pay, resulted in considerable stress and fatigue among the workforce. These issues underscored the urgent need for reforms in worker safety, compensation, and labor rights, which began to be more seriously addressed in the years following Lindsay’s tenure.
Initially, New Yorkers disposed of their trash in metal cans which required sanitation workers to manually drag and empty, leaving behind smelly residue for residents to clean. With the advent of plastic trash bags in the late ’60s, announced by Mayor John Lindsay in 1969, the city hoped to reduce noise, odor, and litter, and improve garbage collection and conditions for sanitation workers.
The introduction of plastic bags was seen as an innovation, coinciding with other technological advances like the moon landing. However, while it seemed beneficial for sanitation efficiency, it overlooked the potential increase in the rat population, which became evident shortly after. Critics, including students and professionals in pest management, predicted this would boost the rat population, calling it a mistake in public health and quality of life.
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By the 1970s, resistance to warfarin began to appear in rodent populations, prompting the development of second-generation anticoagulants like brodifacoum, difenacoum, and bromadiolone. These newer chemicals were more potent and effective against resistant strains, but their increased toxicity led to environmental concerns. These compounds have longer half-lives and are more toxic, leading to secondary poisoning of non-target wildlife, including birds of prey and mammals that prey on poisoned rodents. This bioaccumulation sparked significant ecological concerns.
In response to the environmental impact, some regions have tightened regulations surrounding the use of these potent second-generation rodenticides, limiting them to professional use under specific circumstances to reduce unintended damage to wildlife. Concurrently, there has been a push toward developing alternatives that are more environmentally friendly and species-specific. This includes exploring biological control methods, improved environmental management strategies, and alternative trapping techniques. The ongoing challenge in pest management is to balance effective rodent control with minimizing risks to non-target species and human health, underscoring the complex interactions between human activity and ecosystem health.
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During the 1980s, the administrations of Ed Koch and his successor, David Dinkins, failed to make any in-roads in the disaster John Lindsay created. During the early 80s, NYC received up to 80% of its rat-fighting money from Capitol Hill. That ended in 1983, forcing the city to foot the entire bill. Abandoned buildings left over from the rough-budget 1970s remained reliable homes for rats.
Meanwhile, construction and excavation in the Bronx and Manhattan dislodged rats from their burrows, forcing them to hunt for new lodgings. A new city law shutting down incinerators in apartment buildings forced landlords to adopt trash compactors, further adding to the rat feast. Still, the biggest problem remained the Lindsay Bags.
One exterminator commented, โThose cans will stop a rat, but those bags donโt do much. Why would the rats eat the poison we put down when they can have caviar โ chicken, steak, pizza โ and straight out of the garbage bags!โ
As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.
The city produced a public service announcement that ran on television and in movie theaters. The 60-second spot showed New Yorkers littering all over the city. At the end of each scene, the camera cut to a group of rats.
The message to New Yorkers?
โIf we didnโt have so many pigs, we wouldnโt have so many rats,โ a voice chastised.
Great.
Thereโs nothing New Yorkers love more than being scolded.
Not to be outdone, Rudy Giuliani printed posters that were pasted all over the Five Boroughs. It read: You Feed Them, You Breed Them โ Help New York City Send Rats Packing.
Needless to say, the rats stayed put.
***
Over the course of nearly 60 years, New York City officials learned that they cannot eradicate rats solely through killing. Forget bunnies, itโs rats that are prolific breeders. According to the Smithsonian National Zoo, female brown rats can have up to seven litters a year with an average of eight babies in each litter. You can see how thatโs a problem.
In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio turned to a new strategy that was considered safer than using the anticoagulant rodenticides that often killed animals that preyed on rodents, such as hawks, falcons, and owls. The new tactic aimed to short-circuit the rats’ ability to reproduce. If the pests couldnโt procreate, their populations would eventually die off, or so the thinking went. They turned to a product called ContraPest.
ContraPest is a non-lethal rodenticide that targets the reproductive system of both male and female rats. The active ingredient, 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD), accelerates the degradation of ovarian follicles in females and impairs sperm production in males. In other words, it sterilizes them. If all goes well, the rat consumes the liquid bait, designed to be palatable, leading to infertility. The sterilized rats continue to live out their natural lifespan peacefully but without reproducing. Gradually, rat populations should decrease over time.
A study evaluated the effectiveness of ContraPest on wild-caught black rats in a laboratory setting. Rats were divided into treatment and control groups, with the treatment group receiving the active bait for 15 days prior to breeding and during the first of four breeding rounds.
The results showed complete reproductive inhibition in the treatment group during the first two breeding rounds, while 70% of control pairs produced litters. In the third breeding round, 47 days after stopping treatment, the contraceptive effect began to diminish, with 30% of treatment pairs producing smaller litters compared to the control group. By the fourth round, 99 days post-treatment, there was no apparent difference in fertility between the groups.
The study demonstrated that ContraPest can effectively suppress reproduction in wild-caught black rats under laboratory conditions when provided ad libitum access to the bait. However, the contraceptive effect was temporary, and fertility began to rebound within a few months after stopping treatment. The authors suggested that refinements to this fertility control method could provide a non-toxic alternative for managing rat populations in certain scenarios, such as preventing population rebounds after rodenticide application.
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On April 12, 2023, New York City Mayor Eric Adams appointed Kathleen Corradi as the city’s rat czar to coordinate efforts across multiple agencies.
That same year, officials at the Bryant Park Corporation, the organization that runs the wonderful park behind the New York Public Libraryโs Schwarzman Building (aka the building with the two lions in front of it), ran a pilot program using ContraPest. Two dozen bait stations were scattered around the park, hidden as fake rocks. During previous trials in zoos in Los Angeles and Miami, the rodenticide met with a degree of success. Unfortunately, ContraPest met its match in the NYC rat.
โThe pilot ran for about a month-and-a-half but was unsuccessful,โ said Joe Carella, a spokesperson for the Bryant Park Corporation. โWe are looking into other contraceptive products or forms of administering contraceptives and may do another trial in the future.โ
Corrardi later commented that rats must eat a significant amount of the contraceptive-laced bait to become infertile. But thatโs a hard sell given how much garbage lines the cityโs streets.
โIf garbage is available, it’s very challenging to get them to eat something else,โ Corradi said.
Apparently, getting the rats to voluntarily eat the ContraPest, in whatever form it came, was always going to be a problem.
In an interview with Curbed, Michael H. Parsons, a rodentologist at Fordham University, said,
I actually did write to both Loretta Mayer and Cheryl Dyer, who founded the company, and I said, โAll it takes is one, just a single rodent.โ All it takes is one rodent not to like the taste of the liquid. I said we need to find some other delivery mechanisms. With the pellets, you sort of have the same issue in that the animal has to voluntarily consume it. Say the animal doesnโt particularly like the taste โ if this animal has offspring and the other animals that like the taste donโt have offspring, how many generations is it going to be until the new genotype takes over and displaces the old genotype? Thatโs the tricky thing about this.
So, back to the drawing board then.
***
I spoke with Gil Bloom from Standard Pest Management, one of the city’s oldest businesses dedicated to, amongst other things, rat control. He’s a longtime veteran of the New York City Rat Wars. I wanted to know his thoughts on Mayor Adamsโ campaign against the cityโs rodents.
According to Bloom,
Rats are notoriously difficult to control due to their capabilities and interactions with people, especially in urban environments. Providing them with food allows them to thrive, and food is abundant in cities.
Each administration has developed strategies to combat this issue. For instance, during Giuliani's tenure, the emergency rat committee, known as the Rodent Task Force, was established. Bloomberg continued these efforts with significant steps towards addressing the rat problem. Mayor Adams has even appointed a rat czar, but despite these efforts, rats remain one of the most successful mammals on the planet. They are incredibly adaptive survivors, and humans inadvertently support their survival by providing abundant food and shelter.
Recent reports from the Adams administration indicate a decrease in rodent complaints. However, the reason for this decrease is uncertain. It could be due to people becoming weary of reporting, especially when reporting can lead to their own properties being inspected and potentially fined, leading them to stop reporting issues. Thus, despite fewer complaints, rats continue to be a significant problem in New York City. The city still faces challenges with sanitation at sidewalk booths and the extensive network of underground catch basins and shafts where rodents reside and emerge from at night.
The administration's efforts to manage trash better and reduce plastic bag use may impact the visibility of rats, but it's unclear if these measures have led to a real reduction in their numbers or merely altered their visibility. The effectiveness of these interventions remains to be seen.
***
On July 8th, Mayor Adams took a step to right a past wrong by mandating all residential buildings with 1-9 units to use containers for trash disposal starting November 12, aiming to containerize 70% of the city’s 14 billion pounds of annual trash. The initiative, part of the broader ‘Trash Revolution,’ introduces New York City’s first official trash, recycling, and compost bins, priced below retail and designed to fit the city’s sanitation fleet.
By securing garbage in bins with latching lids, the city aims to mitigate its notorious rat problem, enhance urban cleanliness, and facilitate waste management. The effort builds on previous measures like altering garbage set-out times and is set to expand with the installation of stationary, on-street containers serviced by specialized trucks in selected neighborhoods by spring 2025.
You can call it Exorcising the Ghosts of John Lindsay.
Itโs a step in the right direction and brings New Yorkers back to the 1950s.
And while his dedication is commendable, someone please tell the Hizzoner, the rats always win.
WORDS: Marc Landas.
IMAGE CREDIT: Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York
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