New York City is known for its rats. Letterman jokes about them nearly every night. The public’s fascination with the furry creatures and their connections to the Big Apple is so great that many tourists to the city take time from their itineraries to seek them out. That city, and the lovable rodents that live there, are inextricably linked in the minds of Americans.
Now, New York’s official tourist board has teamed up with the local health department in giving the people what they want: a web search portal that provides the ability for would-be tourists to plan their ratty NY vacations on the Internet. Visitors can easily search for and lock in the coordinates of locations where the friendly little critters are most likely to hang out - anywhere in the city. Once tourists arrive at LaGuardia, JFK, or Newark, they can hand a website printout to any cabbie and be there in the midst of rat heaven within an hour in most instances.
“This is better than my zoo back home,” gushed a burly visitor named Mike, from Indiana. Mike’s family spent half the morning in the Bronx, feeding the rats raisins and bits of cheese that they brought along in their daypacks.
“Awww, look at the cute little fellas…I’ve never seen so many in one place,” said Doris, Mike’s wife. “I think the big brown one over there likes us the most. He sure has an appetite!”
“Why, they’re not scary at all. They’re really quite tame - and inquisitive,” added Mike. “Ever since we first rented ‘Ben,’ we’ve waited for our chance to see these hordes of rats. Now look at us here - it’s fascinating!”
The New York rat search site was so successful that it crashed during its first day online, due to the high demand. Frantic city workers scrambled to add extra web servers in order to keep up with the burgeoning traffic load. Stanley Myron Kappelberger, an official with the NYC tourism board, dropped a few hints about what was to come. “Soon, a savvy visitor to our city will be able to get real-time geolocation data for rat colonies, with nothing more than a Blackberry and hand-held GPS.”
Kappelberger envisions guided bus tours eventually bringing people to the more popular sites. The city is also rolling out an ad campaign, using the slogan “Got rats?” Local denizens of the Bronx and other rat-intensive parts of the city are joining in on the rodent-mania, lurking on sidewalks, hawking souvenirs like t-shirts and giant rat plush toys to the curious onlookers.
Kappelberger also let loose a few details concerning their next project, which would point out locations of fresh crime scenes around the city, on-the-fly. Tourists equipped with mobile devices will soon have the opportunity to drop by murder scenes, sometimes while the police are still there, to gawk at the carnage with the locals.
“We’re providing family-oriented multi-media entertainment for our guests,” added Kappelberger. ” Some day, we hope to have as many people visiting our renowned rats as we do Carnegie Hall or the Empire State Building!”
