RATS ON THE WEST SIDE, BEDBUGS UPTOWN: New York City names its first-ever ‘rat czar.’

New York City now has a “rat czar.”

Kathleen Corradi has been named the city’s director of rodent mitigation.

“You’ll be seeing a lot of me and a lot less rats,” Corradi said Wednesday after she was introduced by Mayor Eric Adams.

Added Adams: “Kathy has the knowledge, drive, experience, and energy to send rats packing and create a cleaner more welcoming city for all New Yorkers.”

The mayor also announced $3.5 million for rat mitigation in Harlem. The money will fund new techniques and new staff members to inspect, exterminate and clean public spaces.

“He hates rats. I hate rats. Every New Yorker hates rats,” Corradi said. “Rats are tough but New Yorkers are tougher.”

Back in 2013, I wrote a lengthy post on Charles Bronson’s first Death Wish movie, filmed on location in the clapped out, crime-ridden Manhattan of the 1970s, and concluded:

In contrast, New York has improved immensely since the period depicted in the original 1974 Death Wish. Naturally, New York’s bourgeois-bohemians, as David Brooks would call them, would welcome a chance to return to the hell of Manhattan in the ‘70s, as Daniel Henninger noted in a 2005 Wall Street Journal article:

The actor John Leguizamo: New York in the ’70s “was funky and gritty and showed the world how a metropolis could be dark and apocalyptic and yet fecund.” Fran Lebowitz, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair: The city “was a wreck; it was going bankrupt. And it was pretty lawless; everything was illegal, but no laws were enforced. It was a city for city-dwellers, not tourists, the way it is now.” Laurie Anderson, a well-known New York artist and performer, admits the ’70s were considered “the dark ages” but “there was great music and everyone was broke.”

I hope everybody in Fun City is enjoying all the newfound funkiness and grittiness as much as its Bobo elites who cheered for its return.