Tuesday, June 18, 2019

The rats have gentrified Long Island City

Long Island City residents have been complaining about trash piles around Queens Plaza North, June 15, 2019.
Photo By Christine Chung, THE CITY


THE CITY

 Glossy skyscrapers aren’t the only things rising in Long Island City: On one street, garbage — and rats — are mounting outside a building filled with city agencies.


On 28th Street and Queens Plaza North, next to JetBlue’s offices and near two major subway stations, trash piles regularly tower several feet high.

Dozens of translucent trash bags brim with discarded food, with a Tetris-like grid of cardboard boxes piled alongside. Then there are bags of shredded document confetti, all produced by the occupants of 28-11 Queens Plaza North — a nine-floor building housing various city agencies, including outposts of the Departments of Education and Transportation.

Local residents say the trash has forced them to share the sidewalk with a mobile mischief of rats.

“You see them every night scattering and you hear them,” said Maria Halpern, 63, who has lived on the block for a year with her daughter Katie. “You know the dead people in ‘Game of Thrones?’ The White Walkers? That’s how they march down the block.”

Last summer, Whitney Booker, 36, moved into a newly constructed 16-story building just down the block, enticed by lower rents than where she’d previously lived in Manhattan.

“There were like a mafia of rats living there…. You know how at the Jersey Shore the seagulls aren’t even afraid of people anymore?” asked Booker. “The rats would almost give you a death stare if you’d try and go there.”

This story mostly focuses on the city office building. Pretty sure the mountains of garbage produced by the dozens of luxury towers in that dense area is a big factor too.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad I no longer live in that rat infested, liberal infested, garbage pile any longer.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Glad I no longer live in that rat infested, liberal infested, garbage pile any longer.

I’m so glad for you too.

Steve Dufresne said...

@Anonymous

No one misses you.

Anonymous said...

It’s a plague... along with all the newbies, gentrified and hipsters

Anonymous said...

What happens when you overdevelop the shit of an already crowded city and do not have the infrastructure to handle it even before the development. A balloon eventually bursts when too much air in blown into air. GREED, GREED, GREED.

Move out folks, why stay in the worst city in the country.

Anonymous said...

BIG GANGSTER RATS in group army's like Roman Centurion's!
And they aint a'scaired of nothing, stop, place there claws down and look up at you.
They are in Sunnyside by the 7 train too now.

Anonymous said...

What about the "rat infested Mafia" in city Hall?

Anonymous said...

No the towers wouldn't be allowed to do this!
This is what it looks like next to the high schools in LIC when it's their trash days.
I'm sure the business have to have commercial trash pickups and cannot leave it at the curb this way. The City doesn't live by the rules they set for others as we can see with parking, bike lanes, minimum wage and so on.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous said...
"Glad I no longer live in that rat infested, liberal infested, garbage pile any longer."
I can't wait to say the same thing !

Anonymous said...

I live near a couple schools and every day there is piles of garbage bags and bags are ripped open by can people and garbage is left all over the sidewalk.Also many bags have mixed recyclables in with garbage.NYC does not follow it's on rules and can't fine itself only the poor homeowner who has a scrap of paper on the sidewalk that blew over from the school.

Anonymous said...

""Glad I no longer live in that rat infested, liberal infested, garbage pile any longer""

So where do you go Texas, Florida and buy some homeowner association (HOA Nazi)run box.
--or worse some ice infested shithole up north where you need to get into a freezing car and drive miles to get a fresh bagel, hardware store, shopping, get anything done etc.
In Tulsa for example everything closes 4 PM and the streets look a scene from the "Andromeda Strain" You can even get a glass of wine in an Italian restaurant after 3PM or on Sunday. Your neighbors in red states also expect to see you in church or they will badmouth the shit out of you.
Screw that, Id rather put up with the rats and be able to get, do, anything I want walking distance 24-7. Hell I don't even need a friggan car, walk exercise is good!

The country where most "Red states" are as in where old people go to die. And that's another thing: If you have a heart attack, accident or some emergency your long dead before you get to a proper level hospital that can handle emergency's.
--no thanks.

Anonymous said...

in the early evening Madison and Zixth in Manhattan. like our Main St, are piled with trash and rats. Makes the case for storing and moving trash underground in high density areas.
They have been doing it abroad for decades.

Anonymous said...

Assisted Suicide lets you redeem your grannie with dignity instead of Trump

Anonymous said...

Even birds rip open plastic bags. We need to return to steel cans.

Anonymous said...

Good. 'cause you're the one none of us want. We won't miss you! Life is Bliss here.

Anonymous said...

"Life is Bliss here"
-------------------
Ok fine good for you. How about you then go back to your grits, bibles and freezers of food. Sit in a chair and look at birds, read, whatever.
Leave the New Yorker's along they enough problems.

Anonymous said...

New Yorker's do have enough problems. One of them is you. Simpleminded simpletons who give New York a bad name!