By Michael Ewing 3/07/12 3:12pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Yum! (Gothamist)

Would You Eat off the Ground in a Subway Station?

A month ago, NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign’s first “State of the Station Platforms” was published, outlining the prevalence of twelve conditions down under the streets. The issues ranged from broken light fixtures to rats to garbage accessibility. It was an honest assessment: Subway platforms were not in the best condition, but they weren’t in the worst, either.

But an MTA official thinks quite differently about the cleanliness and conditions. Read More

By Drew Grant 1/06/12 5:46pm

monsters

Don't worry, it's docile. (@TheGoodfella_)

Giant Gambian Pouched Rat Allegedly Found in Bronx Footlocker Definitely Not a Sewer Rat, Says Expert

As if child slave labor in China wasn’t bad enough, Footlocker’s reputation took another hit recently when a Twitter used named @Thegoodfella_ tweeted a photo of a five foot rat went viral on the web. Don’t worry though: an animal curator quoted by The Huffington Post, the creature, allegedly found in a Bronx store earlier this year (the photo was uploaded on Facebook earlier this year before it made the Twitter rounds) promised that “no way it’s a common sewer rat.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 9:07am

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

Rats nest. (xbettyx/Flickr)

Ratner's Traps: Pest Control and a Pesky Lawsuit

Late last month, a “rat tsunami” descended on Brooklyn, kicking up rodents on the streets surrounding the Atlantic Yards project. Neighbors in Prospect Heights and Fort Greene complained that construction of the Barclays Centre was sending rats into the neighborhood. Though a Forest City Ratner spokesman at the time suggested to The Observer that the problem was not conclusively worse than anywhere else in the city, the developer has now seen fit to pony up for some industrial strength garbage cans for neighbors as well as a tougher pest plan. Read More

By Azi Paybarah 12/03/08 4:17pm

New Yorkers: Rats Bad, Subway OK

In a survey of 135,000 randomly selected New Yorkers, fifty-three percent said rat control in their neighborhood is "fair" or "poor," 66 percent said the same thing about noise control, and 52 percent said subway service in their neighborhood was "excellent" or "good."

Michael Bloomberg and Betsy Gotbaum are announcing the results of the Read More

By Chris Shott 5/04/07 5:55pm

Rat Central, R.I.P.

It's curtains for Manhattan's most infamously rat-infested landmark.

KFC-Taco Bell in Greenwich Village—the fast-food venue that so fascinated the nation after widespread video footage showed that the place also doubled as an illegal after-hours spot for crowds of rodents, igniting a Health Department crackdown on restaurants citywide—is closed for good, according to today's Read More

By Chris Shott 4/27/07 4:04pm

Shott On Location: Sneaking Snapshots Of Photo-Phobic Popeye's

With TV crews recently fueling the whole rat frenzy by filming rodent activity through storefront windows, at least one Manhattan fast-food operator has apparently adopted a strategy that might dissuade potentially restaurant-shuttering sidewalk photography.

A sign posted on the door at Popeye's at 47 West 14th Street warns:

"It is Read More