On the West Side, Marking the Path of a \'Conga Line\' of Rats

August 30, 2012, 11:40 am

By JAMES BARRON

If rats could read, they would now know where to cross West 76th Street.

The block association put up yellow “rat crossing” signs on Wednesday â€" not really for the rats, who have limited vision and probably could not see the signs even if English registered in their little brains, but for frustrated residents of the West Side like John Maineri.

“You walk down the street at night, it's like a conga line,” Mr. Maineri said, describing how the rats went back and forth between a tree planter and a Dumpster outside a brownstone undergoing renovation. “They're brazen. They're not intimidated by anything.”

Joseph Bolanos, the president of the block associati on, attached the signs to the poles for alternate-side parking signs on the block between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. He designed the signs to look like the yellow traffic signs that warn drivers of places where deer or cattle often cross a road. “Rat Xing,” his signs say, with black lettering above and below a diagram of a rat.

Residents of the block said the rats congregated around construction sites on the block. Mr. Bolanos has said that in the last 10 years, at least two brownstones on the block have been undergoing major renovations at any given time.

“You can hear groups of rats in garbage bags,” said Michael Schilke, who attended a gathering to post the signs on Wednesday.

He said he was walking his dogs one night recently when a rat scampered over his foot. “I ended up kicking it, not realizing what it was until it landed in the street and screeched,” he said.

Another resident of the block, Ken Biberaj - a Democrat seek ing the City Council seat now held by Gale A. Brewer, who cannot run for that seat in 2013 because of term limits - said people on the block coexisted uncomfortably with the rats.

“My wife has a dance she does, a stomp, on the way to the front stoop that makes them run away,” he said. “We don't take the garbage down at night because they're there.”

Mr. Bolanos said he had made only a handful of signs. He also said he was not worried if the batch posted on Wednesday disappeared.

“I'm making a lot more,” he said.