[title]
As Suzanne Reisman explains on her Garbage and Rats in NYC walking tour, “If you are in New York or any major city, you are probably standing near rats having sex at any given time.” Considering rats can mate 20 times per day, that’s part of the reason why it’s so hard to get rid of these ubiquitous rodents—and why our city’s “War on Rats” is a complicated battle.
Those are just a few of the “fun” facts you’ll learn on the guide’s new walking tour of Lower Manhattan’s dirtier subjects. Garbage and rats are as much a part of New York City as the Empire State Building or Central Park, but a tour dedicated to creepy critters is the new novelty we never knew we needed. You can book this two-hour tour here for $40 per person.
RECOMMENDED: The 6 coolest walking tours in NYC
As a graduate of the city’s Rat Academy and a member of the NYC Rat Pack, Reisman knows her stuff when it comes to rats. She combines that knowledge with vast historical research to weave a fascinating tail—ahem, tale—of rats and garbage dating back to the days of Dutch New Amsterdam.
Long before the rats we know today scurried about New York City’s streets, there was garbage: Human waste, animal waste, carcasses, blacksmithing byproducts and tannery trash filled the city’s streets in the 1600s.
“People say, ‘New York is so disgusting,’” she explains about the complaints of some people today. “No, you have no idea.”
View this post on Instagram
Those unsanitary conditions led to disease and water contamination. Throughout the years following, garbage collection efforts waxed and waned depending on who was in office. Eventually, garbage moved off the streets—and into the rivers. Around the 1800s, there was so much garbage in the waterways around New York, ships would get stuck in the morass.
People say, ‘New York is so disgusting.’ No, you have no idea.
“Sailors didn’t even need to use their telescope because six miles off shore, they could smell the city,” Reisman explained.
Speaking of ships, when rats skittered off of Hessian boats in New York harbor, they discovered “a rat paradise.” They infested the city’s waterfront so handily that the city hired official exterminators to work the ports in the 1920s.
On the tour, you’ll also learn about rat fights (we won’t spoil this story for you) in the part of the city described as “a slum of moral putrefaction.” You’ll also learn about the typical yearlong life of a rat and hear some truly harrowing tales of rat infestations. And you’ll learn about metaphorical rats, as in corrupt people and criminals.
It’s impossible to know exactly how many rats live in New York City, Reisman says, but she estimates it’s likely around 225,000. If you see a rat in the evening, assume there are 10 more nearby. If you see a rat in the daytime, she says, all bets are off.
One more cool thing about New York City rats: They’re foodies, just like us. Rats that live in communities where spicy food is common will develop a taste for the spicy foods they find in the garbage. In neighborhoods where blander food is common, rats will prefer a less seasoned diet.
If your skin isn’t crawling yet and you want to learn more about rats, Reisman recommends Robert Sullivan’s book Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants.
The Garbage and Rats walking tour is just one of the experiences Reisman offers through her Off the Beaten Subway Track Walking Tours. She also hosts an Unexpected Wall Street tour, which digs into finance, Indigenous history, vandals, and ghosts among dark alleys and twisty streets. She’ll soon launch a true crime on the Upper West Side tour—“à la Only Murders in the Building, but real stories.”