Best for Bird-Watching and Good for Rats, Too: No Place Like New York

Good morning. It’s Thursday. We’ll revisit what surveys say about New York and how they shape perceptions of the city. We’ll also see why the spotted lanternfly is not your friend.

We know these things — well, everything above except the song lyric — because of surveys. Hardly a day goes by that a survey does not say New York leads the nation in something or is last in something else — or is somewhere in the middle by yet another metric. Methodologies aside, all those findings add to a sense of the city that is “based on some underlying truths, whether they survey the public or analyze Bureau of Labor Statistics or census data to understand the population,” said Matthew Quint, the director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership at the Columbia University business school. “They all explain who these places are, as places.”

Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University, echoed that idea — “New York is always appealing because there are more ways to excel in New York than anywhere else,” he said.

But he also said that “there’s nothing people feel better than doing than citing a number rather than an idea.”

Not all surveys are lighthearted. Some belie promotional elements and some merely confirm what too many New Yorkers already know. New York was No. 292 on a list of 300 cities ranking affordability for home buyers by the personal finance website WalletHub. Los Angeles was even less affordable than New York, as were four places close Los Angeles (Pasadena, Burbank, Glendale and Santa Monica). No. 300, the least affordable of all, was Santa Barbara, Calif.

New York was No. 71 in another WalletHub ranking, of best places to raise a family, behind Cheyenne, Wyo., and ahead of Garden Grove, Calif.

It is the third most bike-friendly city, behind Davis, Calif., and San Francisco, according to the co-working reservation site Coworking Cafe, which analyzed factors like bicycle infrastructure, traffic safety and co-working options with bicycle amenities.

In the 1960s, New York became known as “fun city.” The term was “mildly derisive,” explained “The Encyclopedia of New York,” — popularized by a Daily News columnist after Mayor John Lindsay had slogged to City Hall during a transit strike and declared: “I still think it’s a fun city.”

Which is probably what he would say about a survey that ranks New York as only fourth for the most fun states in America. The survey did not look at cities. But it said that New York, as a state, led in amusement parks, restaurants and performing arts theaters per capita.

The best bird-watching statistic was arrived at by comparing several factors, including how many bird-watching groups a city has (New York was tied with San Diego and Denver). But New York led in two other metrics in the study, access and conservation.

And then there are rats, which have bedeviled Mayor Eric Adams personally and professionally. As a homeowner, he beat a $300 ticket for a rat infestation at a rowhouse he rents out in Brooklyn. A hearing officer dismissed the case late last year after Adams said he had spent nearly $7,000 to drive them away. As mayor, he appointed a rat czar in April whose mission is to drive down the rat population.

The pest-control company Orkin said that New York had moved to second place, from third place the previous year, in its tally of 20 metropolitan areas by the number of new rodent treatments they needed between Sept. 1, 2021, and Aug. 31 of last year. Chicago was No. 1 both years, prompting the company to say in a news release that “Chicago may soon need to change its name from ‘the Windy City’ to the ‘Rattiest City.’”

Weather

Enjoy a mostly sunny day near the low 80s with a west-northwest breeze. At night, be ready for a slight chance of showers. Temps will drop to the mid-60s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until Monday (Juneteenth).

The latest Metro news

Once again, the message is: If you see one, stomp it. Squash it. Swat it. Suck it up, if you are out for a walk with your vacuum cleaner.

We are talking about the spotted lanternfly, a colorful bug that may be after the grapes for the wine you drink before too long. Ecologists say you should kill spotted lanternflies. Last summer they turned up in parks, patios and even the Union Square subway station. Now, as our writer Asmaa Elkeurti notes, they’re back.

The lanternflies, originally from Asia, arrived in New York City during the pandemic summer of 2020. They’re small, only about an inch long. They’re an invasive species that can damage plants, and they pose a threat to New York’s wine industry because adult lanternflies can do damage by feasting on leaves and stems.

“The spotted lanternfly is knocking at the doors of vineyards in Long Island and the Finger Lakes region,” said Julie Urban, an evolutionary biologist in the entomology department at Penn State who has studied lanternflies for decades. “I’m concerned that if it does get into these vineyards, it’ll turn up the volume a notch or two in terms of economic impact.”

You don’t have to be a wine producer to have an adversarial relationship with the lanternfly. As the president of the Roosevelt Island Garden Club and a member of its pest mitigation committee, Neal Weissman goes between plots in its large community garden carrying a hand-held vacuum. He aims it at any lanternfly nymphs he comes across.

“Yes, I am leading the battle” on pest mitigation, he said. “But they are winning.”

He described an “exponential” increase, adding that his traps have been catching the same number in a single hour as they did in an entire weekend last year.

And the daily vacuuming “has started giving me nightmares,” he said.

The club has considered using sticky tape to catch them, but that risks trapping helpful insects, like pollinators, or even small birds. For now, the island’s gardeners are using pesticide-free strategies, including tree traps geared specifically toward lanternflies.

They proliferate easily in the wild. But they are also adept at hitchhiking: They have appeared on cargo flights to California, which underscores the ecological impact of trade as supply chains become more and more intertwined. Invasive species that accompany imports will need to be controlled, even if some people are reluctant to kill them.

“I think they’re beautiful, and I don’t like killing them either,” Urban said. “But killing them by stomping is better than nuking them with pesticides.”

METROPOLITAN diary

Best seat

Dear Diary:

There’s a tavern on the corner across from my apartment building that I’ve been visiting for lunch on a more-or-less weekly basis for some time.

The staff there is friendly, the place has tasty bar food and there is an inviting outdoor seating area where one can watch the passing parade.

But the benches at the outdoor tables are uncomfortable for this old-timer, so whenever I visited I would bring a souvenir stadium cushion that I got at one of my alma mater’s bowl games.

On one particularly cold day, I didn’t bring the cushion because I had decided to eat inside. As I was escorted to my table, I heard one of the waitresses yell out from across the room.

“Go Rutgers!”

— Walter Staab

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.