This Rat-Filled Harlem Lot Must Be Cleaned Up, City Says

EAST HARLEM, NY — Another month, another empty, rat-infested Harlem lot that needs a cleanup.

The city's health department filed court papers this week seeking emergency access to the lot on the corner of Second Avenue and East 103rd Street. Overgrown with weeds, the corner has sat empty since around 2019, when a four-story building formerly on the site was demolished.

Between May and June of this year, city sanitation workersinspected the site three times, with the most recent visit on June 22 revealing "active rodent signs, including gnawed plastic bags," the city wrote in a court filing on Friday.

Photos taken by the inspectors and show plastic bags and cardboard boxes strewn across the fenced-off lot. Due to the fence, the city was unable to enter the lot and take any action to abate the infestation of rats — which pose a danger since they carry diseases and bite people, the city says.

Last month, the city sent a letter requesting access to the lot's owner — identified in city records as NAB 2000 Realty, LLC, based on Long Island — but received no response. The firm has owned the site since 2014, when it spent $1.5 million to purchase it, according to city records.

Now, the health department is asking a judge to grant an emergency order that would allow workers to gain entry and clean up the lot.

This is at least the fourth rat-cleanup request that the city has filed in the neighborhood this year, following a January request for an empty site on East 125th Street, another in February for a lot on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and a third request in May for a site on East 106th Street. Judges ultimately granted all three requests.