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Interactive Map Shows What NYC Neighborhoods Have The Most Rat-Infested Restaurants
By
Nell Casey
Published Jun 10, 2015
Modified Jun 10, 2015
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By
Nell Casey
Published Jun 10, 2015
Modified Jun 10, 2015
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You're never far away from the city's inexhaustible supply of rats, mice and other vermin. And, for obvious reasons, these critters thrive in large part thanks to the city's great abundance of trash-producing restaurants, as evidenced by the map below, which looks at the percentage of restaurants that have ever been cited for mice or rats—or for roaches!—in any restaurant inspections since January 1, 2014.
Steven Melendez, created the rat map last year and this year, made some interesting observations about the habits of our rat communities, namely that they've managed—yet again—to steer clear of Roosevelt Island's eight restaurants, which he credits to the island's pneumatic tube waste disposal system. Guess we should really move there after all! Of the other 12 zip codes where eateries are apparently rat free, 10 are single-building or single-block zip codes in Midtown, one is a single-restaurant office park on Staten Island, and the other a section of Long Island City near the Pepsi Sign that has five restaurants.
And now, the bad news. Zip code 11001 on the Queens-Nassau border and the private Breezy Point community in the Rockaways had a 100% vermin rate; however, both zip codes only have two eateries, so not so bad? But the next worse zip code (11694) was located also on the Rockaway Peninsula, where 63% of the 38 inspected restaurants had some kind of vermin issue. Over all, nearly 40% of the 24,476 inspected restaurants in NYC were cited for rats or mice.
How does your hood measure up? Click the map below—if you dare!
And we wouldn't want to leave out the city's fervent roach population, considering they'll still be around longer after we suffocate to death. If it can be believed, the stats are much cheerier here than in Rat Town, where under 15% of NYC restaurants had been cited for roaches.
But if you really want to immerse yourself in cockroach culture, you'll have to go to school. The York College Cafeteria at the Queens campus of CUNY's York College—which makes up the 11451 zip code—was cited for both rats and roaches, who are just trying to earn their degrees, man. "Next 'roachiest' is 11208, around the Cypress Hills/East New York area in Brooklyn," Melendez reports. "Where just under 32% of the 104 restaurants have been cited for roaches (and 49 percent have been cited for mice or rats)."
Bon appetit!
Steven Melendez is a Brooklyn-based independent journalist who was previously a full-time member of WNYC's Data News Team.
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mice
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Nell Casey
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