On a hot, sunny day in June, a trip to the New York Aquarium immersed me in the world of aquatic life. Surrounded by marine creatures, I found myself wondering: “I am in their world, and they are in mine... but whose world am I really in?” The answer scurried into focus almost immediately. Rats. Despite spending the day surrounded by marine life, I could not stop thinking about the animal that seems to dominate New York City's landscape.

Though I spent the day observing creatures of the sea, my thoughts continually drifted back to New York City’s most persistent inhabitant. It is no secret that rats have become a common presence across all five boroughs, with their population continuing to grow and reaching an estimated one million over the last decade. The brown rat, also known as the Norway rat, first arrived in New York City during the mid-18th century aboard European ships and cargo vessels. With its abundance of waste and dense urban infrastructure, the city quickly became an ideal habitat for these resilient rodents.

As rats adapted to life in the city, New Yorkers adapted as well, developing a range of strategies to manage the ever-growing population. Among the most common of these strategies is the use of rodent bait stations.

Walking through the streets of New York, I began to notice a seemingly ordinary yet ubiquitous object, the black rodent bait station. Positioned discreetly along sidewalks and beside buildings, these boxes have become a familiar part of the urban landscape. Designed to poison and control rat populations, bait stations are strategically placed in areas where rodents are most likely to travel, serving as a quiet yet constant effort to curb the city's enduring rat problem.

Yet despite the city's constant efforts to control them, rats have become an unlikely staple of New York City's culture. While often viewed as pests, they have also taken on a surprisingly positive role in the city's public imagination.

The rat has become New York City’s unofficial mascot. From Pizza Rat, the viral 2015 sensation struggling to drag a giant slice of pizza down a subway staircase, to Scrabby, a symbol of labor activism during the 1996 sanitation workers' strike, rats have embedded themselves in the city's cultural identity as much as in its physical landscape.

From the strategic control of rat populations to their integration into the city's culture, the question remains. Will this continuous struggle between New Yorkers and rodents ever reach homeostasis?