One of the biggest disadvantages of living in the city is the invasion of rats. You have all seen them; they are in the parks, on the streets, in the garbage and in your back yard. Estimates of how many rats there are in the city varies. Many say that New York City has one rat per person, for a total of about 8 million; other information suggests that there are 100 million rats living in New York City.
When I first moved to the East Village five years ago, I used to see them sporadically, but very rarely outside my building. Today, the number of rats that I see outside of my building on a daily basis is close to five. They are having a party every day after dark. They push garbage cans over, rip open garbage bags, in successful attempts to feed themselves and their families on leftover Chinese food and chicken.
The reasons for this invasion are many, I guess, but the increase of rats started when the parking lot next door was sold to developers and contractors started building a residential building. In addition, Mama Trini was told to stop looking after the garbage. Mama Trini has lived in the building since the 80’s and for as long as I have been there she has been making sure that residents placed their garbage and recycling in the right cans, making sure food was not spilling out from the garbage, and that the area stayed relatively clean.
Sofia Douglas said, “I have made several calls to 311 and reported this.” Douglas has a dog and is worried that he could be bitten or accidentally poisoned by rat poison.
Even with your eyes closed, you could guess where you are. The smell gives it away. The smell of illness, distress and injury tells you that you’re at the Emergency Room. The ER at Beth Israel to be specific. Once you open your eyes, you see the washed-out colors of green, brown, grey, and beige, colors of depression and disease on floors, walls, chairs, sheets and curtains.
I understand one hundred percent understand and absolutely agree that the ER’s main focus should be on saving lives and making patients feel better for the moment and not on the interior design of the place. But don’t you think that the depressing colors are adding to the distress that the patients already are feeling? A splash of yellow or blue color could perhaps calm and make patients feel better. Maybe even let children come in to paint the walls with their drawings.
Walking around in the East Village, one can be sure to see the signs of gentrification that the neighborhood has been going through over the past years. Instead of bodegas, there are trendy cafes selling small sandwiches with coffee for $15. Where affordable housing used to be are tall glass buildings, charging $3000 for a one bedroom apartment.
The newest addition to the already visible signs of gentrification is high-rise boutique hotels, charging $400 per night. These hotels are popping up all around the neighborhood, but in particular around The Bowery. The Bowery used to be a historical street, at first home to flop houses and then home to many artists, authors, and filmmakers. Today, residents are being pushed out by landowners so that they can sell their buildings to hotel developers. According to the Bowery Association Network some of the major developments include the Bowery Hotel at 335 Bowery, the Avalon Bay buildings centered on Houston St., and the New Museum at 235 Bowery. In addition, seven more hotels are being developed on The Bowery. The primary issue is obviously that the long-term residents are being pushed out, but residents are also concerned with the character change that the expensive hotels are bringing.
The other day when I picked up James, the boy that I care for three afternoons a week, I noticed that despite the cold temperatures, it was 25 degrees, he wasn’t wearing more than one shirt under his jacket, and he was without a hat, a scarf and gloves. I asked him about it, and he said he was fine. It made me wonder about lunch recess. Don’t the children play outside after lunch? Will they not be cold if that’s all they’re wearing when they play outside? I asked him about it and he said, “We don’t go out when it’s cold, or when it’s raining outside.” I was more than surprised. I was shocked. Whatever happened to “dress according to the weather report”? I later asked his older sister and my husband about it, who both were not surprised at all. Their responses were something like, “Of course, it’s cold outside.” I started looking into different schools’ policies regarding recess during the winter months and came across an article in The New York Times discussing exactly that. In other places around the country, outdoor recess gets canceled when the temperature drops below -20degrees. Maybe it’s me who is overreacting; I grew up in Sweden and the winter months are both long and cold. Despite that, we were never allowed to stay inside during recess. But the fact is that child obesity is a very big concern in this country and I think that a little daily exercise could really help to lower the number of obese children, which for me makes this an important issue to write about. This incident is not at all isolated to the schools in the East Village, but I bent the rules a little. I’m going to continue looking into this to see if there is a pattern in other schools around the city as well and to try to find out why the children are not let out to play when it gets a little cold.
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