A Walk in the Park: Rats Overrun Collect Pond Park

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Rats Overrun Collect Pond Park - "Rat Zoo"

A Video capture of rats in Collect Pond Park in lower Manhattan.

MANHATTAN

Paolo Mastrangelo posted a video on nyctheblog.com of numerous rats frolicking around the decrepit parks' planting beds and enormous sinkholes surrounded by metal barriers. Adding to the embarrassment, the 1 acre park is located a few blocks from City Hall and is surrounded by numerous court houses. The park has long been known as one of the worst in Manhattan. Besides its deplorable condition, it is also famous because for decades the Parks Department has allowed a major portion of the park to be illegally used as a municipal parking lot without the "non-park use" getting State alienation legislation. The park's long-delayed $ 3.5 million dollar renovation will consist mostly of hardscape including numerious water features.

"Collect Pond Park seems to be returning to its original state of 200 years ago, when it was a garbage and disease infested sinkhole," Paolo Mastrangelo wrote. "The sidewalks are cracked, broken, and sinking into the ground. Numerous benches are missing seating. Large swaths of paving stone inside the park have gone missing, and the landscaping consists mostly of dirt. Rats have created a network of tunnels underneath. The park is used by mainly by homeless and intoxicated peoples in the evening, and working class residents who work in the government buildings nearby during the day. Neither group apparently worthy of a cared for and landscaped park."

MYFOXNY.COM - A New York City blogger recorded footage of rats overrunning a Manhattan park to the point where he jokingly renamed it Rat Zoo.

Paolo Mastrangelo recorded dozens of rats on the sidewalks, bushes and cracks in the ground.

He wrote on nyctheblog.com that an NYPD officer expressed resigned anger at the rats overrunning the park. "Look at that thing," he exclaimed, pointing and shaking his head in disgust, "it's as big as a cat!"

The park is located on Leonard Street between Lafayette and Centre Streets near the courts complex.