When the MTA started work at Second Ave., I had figured the rat infestation articles would come. Yet, in the three years since the groundbreaking for Phase I of the current SAS projects, rats have been noticeably missing from the picture, until, that is, today. As part of their new New York City-focused metro coverage, the Wall Street Journal reports on an increase in the number of rats on the Upper East Side. “It looks like the street’s moving,” Walter Johnson, a 35-year UES resident, said to Andrew Grossman. “It’s just wild. You can’t imagine how infested this place became.”
Recently, UES residents have taken their complaints to the MTA, but the authority and its contractors say an abandoned building on Second Ave. and not the subway construction is the root of the rat problem. There are, says the MTA, no rat problems within the work zone, and the contractors have, according to Grossman, a ” rodent-control program in place that includes bait and traps within the construction zone.” Public health experts dispute the connection between construction and rats in the first place. “The public has the perception that if there’s construction, there’s going to be rats,” Bobby Corrigan, a city consultant, said. “There’s never any scientific evidence to show those two things are correlated.”
Still, even with the MTA implementing rodent-control measures and a likely cause of the infestation pinpointed, Upper East Siders prefer to blame the Second Ave. Subway for their quality-of-life problems. It’s become a familiar trope and one that is bound to last until the first Q train rolls up Second Ave., if not beyond. As Tara Reddi said, ignoring all evidence to the contrary, “We are, until 2018, in a living hell.”
