Possibly The Saddest Thing Ever: Rat Stuck In Sidewalk

I know this was almost a year ago, but this morning, on my way to get a cup of coffee, I saw the same thing in a sidewalk crack here in Portland, in a residential area in inner NE. His little eyes were still open and his hands were resting there, just like the photo above. We poked it with a stick and it didn't respond. My boyfriend convinced me it was probably dead (at risk of having to hunt down a crowbar at 8AM and destroying the neighbors sidewalk).

We went home and I googled "rat stuck in a sidewalk" and found this thread. I didn't snap a picture of my deceased friend--for his dignity and all. I'm kinda glad I dont' have to see him playing solitaire. I'm also glad I don't live in that house, having to think about how to remove the body! *shivers*

But then again...I wonder if there's a chance he's just really fatigued...I think I need to go back and check...

It was gone; just a small hole where it used to be. I'm going to image someone let it go.

I wonder if Obama feels like this

This photo isn't really the saddest thing ever.
That would be the caption describing the photo of the
rats family trying to pull him back down into the hole.

It's good someone did something or else by the next morning, after other rats ate it, it would've been a more grotesque sight.

Two words: Nine Iron

C'mon 200!

rohadékok

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just punt its head across the street already

Sooooo... where are the news updates on this? Did the rat make it? Did it meet with a foot stomping conservative?

It was already dead when I found it. So I did what every manly New York male would do, I told the doorman about it and rushed off to work.

He looks alive in this picture. Was he really dead.

Looks like he was making his final wish. That's why it's so sad...

So Sad that he made me want to take him home with me.

You really don't have any friends, do you? :(

After repeated attempts, it finally agreed to buy life insurance.

Favorite Thread Ever.

"thefacts" fails again. You can find bluestone sidewalks in Brooklyn fairly easily. I'm guessing "thefacts" never goes far from his LES apartment. "Sealed up tight"? Looks to me like the grout (who would use caulk on a sidewalk?) is old and broken and only the piece on the left remains. Also, sidewalks always sit on a subgrade of soil, which is often vulnerable to undermining or being washed out by rain. I pass by a fire hydrant every few days where you can see broken concrete around the base and a hole at least a foot deep beneath. Who says rats don't come out in daylight? I've walked past a construction site in lower Manhattan in early afternoon where a disgusting number of rats were just dashing all over the place and across the street in broad daylight. NYC rats are brazen.

Let's hope that patch of sidewalk isn't where all the rain gathered last night. Otherwise, we'd have a drowning on our hands.

rats climb in and out of holes in the non-concrete sidewalk in front of my apartment...well, all the time. i have actually seen the same rat in the subway station under the street pop out of the hole once i got up the stairs to the street level. (i mean, i presume it was the same, i didn't ask him) trash does not regularly fall down the hole i am speaking of but it may in this particular hole, unsure.

as far as the conspiracy theory goes, there is plausible evidence to suggest that this *could* occur. but i think we all remember the Montauk Monster a little to well to believe everything we see in blog photographs...

too

IT'S A HOAX.

IT'S A HOAX.

IT'S A HOAX.

Rats are not moles. They do not borrow up to the daylight from under the ground.

Note that this sidewalk is not made of concrete. Except for the old bluestone used in a couple of historic districts, all of NYC streets are made of concrete! It is unlikely that this is even a NYC sidewalk.

Look closely at the crevice. It has debris and garbage stuck in it. It is sealed tight. You can even see caulking that is used to seal the slabs. If the debris doesn't fall through, then how could a rat make it through? Besides, rats are too smart to go through a crevice that their whiskers tell them is too narrow for their bodies.

Jen wrote: "We are still awaiting a reply from Wayne to ask if he tried to help the little guy (or gal) out, where it was located and whether we needed to send out a rescue squad."

The fact that "Wayne" did not give the location and has not responded almost 24 hours later indicates further it is a photoshop hoax.

IT'S A HOAX.

IT'S A HOAX.

IT'S A HOAX.

Not a hoax. I took the picture. And others saw it. You're right though, it wouldn't normally do this. Someone had put bricks and mesh around a tree the day before. So this was the only way out. And the sidewalk is pushed up a bit from the tree's roots. It was on the Upper West side, and although some people may disagree, that's still part of New York.

if it isn't photoshopped and is indeed real than it is quite sad. all critters deserve a chance to live, even if they aren't the most popular ones on the planet.

Facebook_User_Hillary says: " .. it's morally fascinating to ask ourselves why we feel compassion for a single example of a pest that, on an institutional level, we want to exterminate .. "

Well, chalk it out to the usual laziness/ ignorance/ hypocrisy/ cynicism/ fatalism/ /(any clever justification)

of some. I'm all for stopping this nonsensical extermination effort - did you know, there are about 3 main rat armies fighting it out all the time in NYC. They will balance themselves quite well - especially if we stop feeding them all the time with our nasty habit of wasting and then throwing out food (which isnt even very healthy to start with).

Sometimes there is some kind of perverse karma at work for people who feed even pricey "standard junk" catfood to their pets. Not thinking for a moment about the "concentration camp style" animal (parts) that go into making these Purina et al "Gourmet cat foods".

Why perverse? because, as you may have noticed, abou 90% of cats die prematurely of kidney failure or any number of unnatural causes (cancer etc).

So, yes alas we do have to think even about which catfood we buy (at least we still have some choice there, unlike which politicians we can find that aren't for sale).

My favorite is "The thinking person's cat food" - appropriate, eh! My cat Kal is seen there endorsing the righteous choices one "could" make

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycandre/3269424506

NYC andre " we all live in a yellow bubble"

what a ratastrophe

I actually think people's reactions here are very telling, and it's morally fascinating to ask ourselves why we feel compassion for a single example of a pest that, on an institutional level, we want to exterminate. Thanks for posting this, Gothamist. I blogged about it on Everyday Ethics today with a link to this page. http://bit.ly/138zd5

Old Joke:

Why is the N.I.H. (National Institute of Health) substituting rats with lawyers for lab tests?

Three reasons:

1. There are more lawyers then rats.

2. When rats die many lab techs feel bad for them.

3. There are some things a rat will not do.

I don't care for rats, but this is seriously sick. Gothamist has gone off the rails.

in response to ever present automaton reactive bullies that think violence and dead is the answer to compassion:

how interesting most people fail to see a sick logic in favor of the bigger pest of this planet:

let's edit one of the comments:

"It is a 'HUMAN'...

Not a poor 'rat' or any kind of cute little thing.

He is a pest and 'an ecosystems' health threat.

Maybe stomping him is not the best ending but it sure does beat bleeding out from ingesting the 'processed food cancer' that is used all over the city.

Fail human is right. now give him his darwin award and put him out of his misery"

I guess the idea is that no matter who or what it is, alleviating its suffering is always the right thing to do. So either put him out of his misery painlessly, or maybe try and open that crack a little and give it a chance. Live and let live.

Here's a "happy" well, who knows for sure, at least natural ending - but it elicited some literary interest, a year or so after it was photographed and that photo noticed - and he may have been lying dead there for a while too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycandre/2921344926/

"We all live in a yellow bubble "

No one photoshopped a slice of cheesecake or a junior's box yet?

or a wack-a-mole photoshop?

or a felix the cat?

or a taxi tire nearing by?

or the fantastic 4 cover?

i suck at photoshop.

Poor little guy. Hopefully he managed to get out of that hole safe.

I realize I'm tardy to the party. And yes, rats are a health hazard. But I took a class in epidemiology and learned that rats are actually the first layer of protection AGAINST disease. They're the ones that succumb to various strains of the plague first; possibly halting its spread to humans. As for the little guy stuck in the sidewalk? Olive oil might have help pry him out. (It's what the fire dept uses when babies get stuck in those awful child-bathtub seats.) But the rat in the photo looks ill; matted fur.

If you've ever looked at a rat's feet, you'll note how similar they are to humans'. I guess that's another useless piece of trivia. Carry on.

Wait a minute. Wasn't it the rats that helped spread the great plagues throughout London and Europe back in the early days?

In any case, I would've let the rat go. Rats do live off our excesses. We are responsible for them.

Wow...Banksy taking his street art to a new level I see.

how much fun would it be to bring a radio control cat over to play

Aww he looks to uncomfortable to make a Photoshop image! I don't like rats either but I hate to see any animal suffer.

can we go for 200 comments. that'd make my weekend.

sad?....yes

Sad! This is really upsetting. Poor little guy.

I love you guys!

News flash for Felix the Cat

We Cats Eat Rats

I noticed this on flickr the other day:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27265954@N00/2028797865/in/pool-1113966@N22

Christ! Show some consistency people. Rats are disgusting & if this was a different situation, it might be eating a baby alive. If the freaking city would get off its ass and do something, the rat would be dead long before it made it to the surface.

Haha the world is so bizarre

We need NYC DEP to give the 55 Water Street peregrine falcons a field trip to Brooklyn. Lunch will be provided.

You're right, and after that, let's send them falcons after the pigeons. We wont have to worry about the falcons anymore because they'll be so heavy that they will fall from the skies and kill themselves.

please tell me someone helped this little creature out. i'm about to take a train from connecticut to do it if no one else will. address?

This is not the time for compassion. The rat is a disease carrier. The proper response is a way to rid the city of them. Let us not get carried away, they're a menace.

It's not a rat in the sidewalk.

It's a hoax in the sidewalk.

Photoshop triumphs again.

Last Friday it was balloon boy, this Friday it's crack rat. When will the madness end ?

I would think that unleashing a clutter of hungry alley cats would put it out of it's misery....

Once he got caught up in crack, that rat's life choices dwindled and he never got anywhere. In the end, he was merely a subject of ridicule until he died a cruel, tortuous death. Meanwhile, his pals are in your medicine cabinet checking out all the cool pharms.

118 posts for this, wow you people have no life. oh, wait.......

I would get the rat out with the same graphics editor -- Photoshop, most likely -- that was used to put it in.

looooool nice pic and nice set

________________

http://www.ra23h.com

Another sign of how selfish and uncaring we've become as a society. A helpless creature is in distress and Wayne chooses to whip out his phone and take pictures.

yep, that is fucked up. Take a photo, can anyone be more useless than that. I am sure wayne is one of these person like ZANSR perhaps. assholes.

Please go back to your square state.

If it was a squirrel, would people have helped it?

Absolutely not, are you out of your mind?

what's the latest with this little guy? did somebody get him out or what?

I heard that the situation was "rectified".

Wonder if this is a new type of trap created by the evil genius of the DOT. I think have that to stop smoking the good stuff.

We know the ASPCA would not come and help but there are many that say why did the poster not help - what could he do to help? You can't grab it - it is afraid and would most likely tear anyone near him up. Poke it with a stick?

Helping also includes hitting it with a hammer and ending its misery. It is always humane to extinguish the vermin of this world.

I'm sure minutes after this photo was taken someone's Friday night got off to a gross, rat-bloody start.

Why did that reader just take a picture and not help the poor rat or call ASPCA to help him. That is so fucked up. Poor rat

Your Gothamist username should be felixthecrap.

It is you that is crap, it is only a few minutes to help a poor rat.. shame on you. When you are in need of aid, you will know how it feels to be ignored as they take photos of you.

I am sure it's also Bloomberg's fault for not fixing the sidewalk crack and causing your vermin buddy to be stuck there. Sorry but rats and other animals are killed and ran over everyday, good luck trying to save each and everyone of them.

I think the picture taking reader was Christine Quinn.

Felix IT IS A RAT! The ASPCA has its hands full with abandoned and abused animals as it is. They would not have stopped everything to go and rescue a rat. The photo taker would have had more luck getting a couple of cops from the local precinct use it for target practice.

The fact that you like to get people riled up by defending this rat, or offering your services to rescue (laughable) it is kind of sad. You say poor rat Felix... I say poor you.

I say poor anyone who has the misfortune to know such a heartless prick. What is the big deal to help this rat instead of leaving him in such a tortured state. If you can't comprehend that that it is you that is in a poor state.

I would have help him myself but if the guy who took the photo didn't want to help than at least call someone. Really, to leave the rat like that is Fucked up.

I am proud, embarrassed and disgusted to report that I also witnessed this strange spectacle. It took place a couple weeks ago on 82nd btw Columbus/CPW.

The little guy was well dead so in response to the comments above, it was too late for an intervention, never mind a diet.

Did I help? Well, I'm proud to say I kept my dog from eating him.

100!

i think by now some kid has stomped on this fat mofo

btw can someone photoshop marimbas now?

Poor thing!

Here's an eery thought--where was it that this rat came from? Picture yourself in the inky darkness of some fetid passageway under the sidewalks of NYC. You see a shaft of daylight beckoning you to freedom. You get stuck in the crack because your butt is too fat. There's no way you're going back down because something dangerous lurks below . . .

The bottom line is that it must be pretty hideous down there if a rat is trying to escape to the animal-friendly sidewalks of NY.

Don't be afraid that you can't do it

There is really nothing to it

Shake with your hands wiggling from your ears

Make like a mouse push your feet down and cheer...

so long Soupy

www.forgotten-ny.com

I'm posting strictly to help make this the fastest post to reach 100 comments in the history of Gothamist.

"hopefully this makes it a little better!",- it actually does make you feel better.

Ahhh Jen you are awesome!!

Dead Himmler loves Jen Chung.

Who doesn't love Jen Chung?

Now he just needs a cigar and a little green tinted visor...which is how all rats play solitaire.

Ahhh morbid obesity. Not just for humans anymore.

It's an American rat. Gluttony is our motto.

Rats and pigeons are pests and health threats, and they spread disease. Humanely putting him out of his misery is right thing to do.

Most of the disease inflicted on humans are caused by themselves or other humans. (STDS ....) Perhaps we should humanely put them out as well.

That's incorrect, most pathogens are environmental, and vermin are a big carrier. Have you ever traveled to a 3rd world place which has no public health infrastructure?

Rats, pigeons, mosquito, dogs and cats aren't so cute there. They cost millions of lives through direct infection and contamination of water and food supplies.

Do you live in a 3rd world country?? I was speaking about NY and how the majority of our disease are from our own doing and from other humans. In fact, a good diet and good grooming is something that many in NY lack.

Alright, we get it. Save the animals, hug a tree. thanks.

Maybe you shouldn't live in/read a blog about one of the most populous, crowded cities in the world.

I hear they're always looking for good lumberjacks in Alaska.

Why must I live in Alaska? why can NYC be a humane city? Humanity isn't a location. Of course you make reference to tree huggers but it is people that are so self-absorbed and consuming that make society worse for other species as well as our own.

while there may be some debated as to whether this is the Saddest Thing Ever, there can be no debate that this is the greatest Gothamist Posting Ever.

How many times can I press the Like It button? Will it keep counting them?

http://twitpic.com/mn2ir

hopefully this makes it a little better!

It does, it does.

That is hysterically perfect.

Haha i cant get enough. FTW post of the week!

hahaha!