New Study Shows That Rats Prefer Cities With Logical Street Grids

ABOUT A YEAR AGO, I covered an unfolding drama in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle where a rat had jumped into a baby stroller, leading to a jurisdictional squabble over exactly who had rodent control responsibilities there. While rats certainly do enjoy the circle, a new study shows that they like rectangular grids. According to Science Daily, rats love Manhattan in particular because they can cover more territory because of the logical street grid.

According to Science Daily:

"We put rats in relatively large areas with objects and routes resembling those in Manhattan,” explains Prof. [David] Eilam. The rats, he found, do the same things humans do: They establish a grid system to orient themselves. Using the grid, the rats covered a vast amount of territory, “seeing the sights” quickly. In contrast, rats in an irregular plan resembling New Orleans’ failed to move far from where they started and didn’t cover much territory, despite travelling the same distances as the "Manhattan rats."

So if rats understand street grids, what does that mean for the District of Columbia, where much of the city is a giant grid interrupted by giant diagonal avenues? Does Pennsylvania Avenue provide an easy route for rats to cross quadrants? Does that mean that traffic circles and squares, at the intersection of the grand avenues, create natural gathering spots for rats (and I suppose people)?

That would be an interesting study ...

» "Rats Say: Manhattan Rules!" [Science Daily]

Do Svidaniya Brighton Beach: Brief Visit to Gawk at Furry Streetscape a Success!

IF YOU SEE ANY FUR COATS on a Coney Island- or Brighton Beach-bound subway train, there's a good chance the owner's destination is Brooklyn's own Little Russia-by-the-Sea. Heading out on the F train earlier today, I spotted the first clue that confirmed I was headed to the right direction: A woman in her 50s bundled up in a sable coat with matching fur-covered pillbox-type hat. With her there was a Bed Bath & Beyond bag carrying some sort of comforter and a second bag with an overly earnest looking Raggedy Ann doll.

Because the train was late, it ran express out the Culver Line. As the train pulled into the W. 8th Street station, the woman stood up to exit -- I surmised she wanted to transfer to a Q train to Brighton Beach, like me -- the F train pressed forward to the Stillwell Avenue terminal. The woman made a sour face, looked about the train car and sat back down, clearly miffed. Raggedy Ann continued to look out of the bag, not phased.

Fifteen frigid minutes later, and a transfer to a Q train at Stillwell, we were in Brighton Beach. Like neighboring Coney Island, much of the action is on the boardwalk. But not in January. Instead of using the seaside promenade as a parade ground, the fur-festooned Russian residents of Brighton Beach take to their boulevard under the tracks.

If PETA organizers were looking for a good place to stage an anti-fur action, Brighton Beach Boulevard in January is the place to be. But I wouldn't want to face off with the locals, a fierce bunch hardened by the icy winter sea breezes and sharp-edge typography of the Cyrillic alphabet that dots the main drag under the B/Q train tracks.

Six years ago this weekend, I was visiting friends in Manhattan and ventured out to Brighton Beach, went to M&I International Food and gawked at the birch sap for sale while a Russian friend of mine bought caviar in bulk. Over yonder, a babushka was seated on the stairs, selling tubes of lipstick, perfume and eyeliner neatly arranged on the stair steps. (A health safety violation? Izvinite!) I didn't go in this time, but a recent review on Yelp aptly sums up the atmosphere: "The customers are rude and will push you without apologizing or saying excuse me, but that's most of Brighton Beach."

Six years ago, it was frigid, much like today. But instead of sunshine, it was cold, gloomy and snow was blowing through the elevated tracks. It was Brooklyn's own little Arctic Murmansk.

From my memories of that trip to Brighton Beach -- my first time there was back in the early 1990s -- it was the first time I'd ever seen fur coats en mass. Growing up in Michigan where it was indeed cold, fur coats might have been looked upon as a little too showy, reserved only for a select few woman of a select stature in town. In middle school, a friend had said the way to judge a woman in a fur coat was how wide the strips were: The thinner the strip, the cheaper the pelt and the cheaper the coat. And why would you want to be showy with a cheap fur coat?!?

In Brighton Beach, it's mostly wide strips at least from my informal survey. And it seemed that more than half of everyone on the street was bundled up in fur. Russians, you see, take the cold very seriously.


I blended in with the streetscape wearing my dad's old sheepskin coat from the 1960s. Plus, as someone who is half Latvian, I looked sort of Russian. (But never tell that to a Latvian, just in case you don't know your Soviet history. Stalin, gulags and occupation are never leisurely topics of conversation.)

Stepping into an all-Russian book and gift store, I walked through, looking at the array of titles, trying to do a rough translation from the Cyrillic to the Roman alphabet. (Like that was going to help me figure it out ...) I carefully moved from section to section, trying to figure out an escape that would involve avoiding having to move around anyone. An encounter might have necessitated an uncomfortable conversation in my non-Russian.

I found my route out, snaking through what I think was the religion section and to safety on the street.

While six years hasn't changed the Brighton Beach strip that much, there's now a Starbucks and a Bank of America. While getting cash from the ATM, Russian voices dominated. And there was more fur in the lobby!

And while the fur today wasn't as dominant as it was six years ago, there were some show-stoppers: There was the woman in something that looked too orange to be natural. Then there was an elderly man in a Rascal-type scooter wrapped in a black fur thing, and matching ushanka, ear-flaps up and looking absolutely miserable. And then there was the otherwise striking woman with a brown fur bonnet showing off some Snuffalopogus-style Ugg things. She got looks from some of the locals hanging out. You don't see something like that every day, not even in Brighton Beach in January. Too bad it was too cold to take many photos. I got a couple, but Bill Cunningham should really swing through.

And while it's hard to tell how the recession is affecting retail sales along the strip, you can get something furry starting at $999, as you can see in one of the photos here.

My toes frozen, it was time to leave for the warmth of home.

Sidenote: Do they make fur-lined Snuggies?


First photo by Flickr user arimoore; the rest by Michael E. Grass

PARK SLOPE: Danger! Sextegenarian's Face Meets Feisty Dog Walked by Multi-Tasking Stroller Mom

DESPITE HAVING nearly 20 subway lines running through Brooklyn, taking the train between Point A and Point B in New York's most-populous borough isn't necessarily the quickest and certainly not the most direct option. Brooklyn's subway lines -- except the indigent and deficient-G -- feed into Manhattan, get intertwined in Downtown Brooklyn with few connections. So walking can be the best inter-neighborhood transit option as is riding the bus, which gives you a nice above-ground tour of the local environs.

Saturday afternoon, while riding the B71 bus along Union Street from Smith Street in Carroll Gardens to Grand Army Plaza at Prospect Park, I saw my first certifiable Park Slope "stroller incident." And was it ever a glorious sight to see! For those who don't know, Park Slope is home to well-off thirtysomething professionals, many with young children. Sharing the sidewalk can be a contentious neighborhood issue with stroller-pushing parents facing off against essentially everyone else for precious personal space on the public sidewalk and the right of way when crossing the street.

At the corner Union Street and 6th Avenue, in the heart of the Slope, a power-walking thirtysomething mother was multitasking, pushing a stroller with child aboard and walking a giant, commanding bulldog-like canine. As she was headed north on 6th Avenue, another thirtysomething was walking her petite, scrappier-looking dog. Just as the two dogs began to take interest in each other in the warm sunshine -- it's spring ... dogs get feisty -- an older couple pushing 60, strolled right into the nexus of danger!

The bulldog got excited; the scrappier dog did too. There was some barking. The bulldog leaped into the air and did some sort of acrobatic half twist, and in the process, hit the poor sextegenarian woman right in the face!

So, this begs the question: What's the bigger threat to the sacred quality of life of Brownstone Brooklyn? Those skateboarding punks supposedly menacing nearby Boerum Hill or stroller-pushing, multi-tasking Park Slope mothers who can't choose between their dogs and kids?

When I related the story to someone today, she said that you have to consider that when you're a mother, you sometimes must juggle a pet and a child and thus are forced to bring both out into the public arena. Thankfully, I have yet to see such multi-tasking on Smith or Court streets in my neighborhood. And here's a sign that sidewalk life is better on my side of the Gowanus Canal: I have yet to see a double-wide stroller. I'm crossing my fingers that I will avoid an awkward sidewalk-sharing encounter down the road.

Map courtesy the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; photo of Court Street's stroller scourge courtesy Pardon Me for Asking via Curbed

NORTHEAST CORRIDOR: N.Y.-Bound

I'M HEADED TO NEW YORK in the morning. New job.

Oh yes, I don't think I've actually technically announced it on this here blog. Earlier this month, I accepted an offer to be deputy managing editor of Observer Media Group's Politicker.com, an expanding network of state-specific insider politics websites. If you're familiar with PoliticsNJ.com an PoliticsNH.com, they've been renamed with the Observer's Politicker brand. More have been launched, more are on the way. Here's some background on the project from The New York Times' Brian Stelter. I'll be working from the offices of The New York Observer near the Flatiron Building. I'll be resettling in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, in the next two weeks, which means that I'm splitting my time between D.C. and New York. But Washington won't be a stranger to me and I plan semi-regular visits.

Photo of Manhattan taken from Long Island City, Queens, by Michael Grass

DECISIONS: Here Is My Bat Signal

SO, FOR THOSE WHO know about the big decisions I've been weighing, here is a big clue. Details to come.

Looking out toward Madison Square in Manhattan; Photo by Michael Grass