Of rats, Dogs and people in ruppert park

Nancy Ploeger was walking to the gym one morning when a rat skittered across her path. She was passing Ruppert Park at the time, a scrubby but promising one-acre park on Second Avenue between 91st and 92nd streets, as she does most early mornings before embarking on her day as president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s a great park, it has a lot of trees and there have been efforts in the past to do some plantings,” Ploeger said. “But there are many, many, many colonies of rats living there. It finally just got to me and I said something has to be done.”

The park slopes uphill to the west, at the top of which, in the southwestern corner, is a children’s playground.

Mothers with strollers sit on benches while toddlers clamber over the jungle gym. The park is divided into four quadrants of open space hemmed in by fences about 3 feet high, which line the walkways that bend up and around to the various sitting areas and entrances. Patchy tufts of grass compete for sunlight with thirsty-looking shrubs beneath bare trees that will soon grow leaves.

Ploeger is spearheading an effort to rehabilitate the park, which means cutting back on some of the accumulated brush and rounding up all the rats that call the park home. But there are other, more people-oriented issues to tackle as well. While there are no dogs allowed in the park, many residents in the neighborhood use the semi-enclosed areas of the park as an unofficial dog run.

Bryan Norton moved into the neighborhood about a year and a half ago from Greenwich Village, where he enjoyed what he said was a phenomenal dog run at Tompkins Square Park. His Pomeranian, who goes by the name of Rusty Jones, is too small to make the walk to Carl Schurz Park.

“By the time we get there he’s out of gas,” said Norton. So the pair come to Ruppert for exercise, and risk getting ticketed for violating the park’s no-dog policy. “Technically we’re not supposed to be here, I’ve been threatened with a $150 fine.”

Ploeger formed a group called Friends of Ruppert Park to explore what residents in the neighborhood want to see fixed at the park. The group is currently being run under the auspices of the chamber and has held three meetings. Ploeger said residents expressed interest in creating an official dog run and parents would like to see a swing set. But first, she said, there’s the rat issue to address.

Soon after Ploeger decided to do something about the park, she contacted the city’s parks and health departments. The agencies embarked on a six-week rat-trapping campaign. In the meantime, Ploeger is coordinating park cleanup days. The second priority is removing food sources that could invite the rats. Ploeger wants to raise funds to install Big Belly trash cans, which function like a mailbox in that they don’t allow items to be retrieved once they’re inside.

But the high-tech garbage cans cost about $3,000 each, and currently aren’t eligible for funding under city council rules. Another main thrust of the friends group will be finding ways to raise funds for improving the park. Ploeger is also trying to get signage to discourage those that come to the park to feed the birds, which contributes to the rat problem.

“The idea is to remove any potential food source to keep the rodents away,” she said. “That would eliminate much of the problem.”

And while the biggest obstacle facing the groups is a lack of funds, council member Ben Kallos secured $100,000 in the city council’s budget to install an irrigation system and there are signs that Friends of Ruppert Park could grow in size.

“Every time we have a meeting there are more people coming,” said Ploeger.

And not everyone who has a stake in Ruppert Park would like to see it become more dog-friendly than it already is.

“There are big dogs that come here, and I’m worried that they can just snap and attack the kids,” said one nearby resident, who asked that her name not be used, as her twin daughters zipped around on scooters. She’s also seen that the park is home to an abundance of rats.

“They’re huge, too, and they come out especially at night time,” she said.

While nobody is likely to oppose a plan to rid the park of rats, the community is likely to be divided about whether to include a dog run. During a recent visit to the park, over a half dozen dogs and owners were seen walking through the park or playing with their unleashed dogs. None said they had been ticketed for having a dog, on or off-leash, in the park, though two had been warned.

One woman walking her dog said she’s aware of Friends of Ruppert Park and supportive of an idea to create a facility for animals to play.

“The funny thing is, most people use the park as a dog run anyway,” she said.

Because it’s a relatively new initiative with no funding, Friends of Ruppert Park is currently being run under the auspices of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, though that could change once the group gets more members and funding. But Ploeger said the group’s goal of rehabilitating the park is in keeping with the chamber’s mission, to boost local business.

“The chamber’s mission is on point with supporting the park,” said Ploeger. “What’s good for open space is good for local business. It’s just going to be a better environment for all the businesses around the park.”

And in the end, it seems as if Ploeger has taken it upon herself to negotiate the various interests of everyone involved. So in an ideal world, what would Ruppert Park look like?

“A clean, rodent free park that has a fun facility for kids and families, a nice dog run, and you can go in there and read and sit on a bench and not worry if a rat was sitting there ten minutes before you,” said Ploeger. “Just a really beautiful open parks space that can be used by the whole community.”

Ploeger will be meeting soon with Community Board 8’s parks committee before going before the full board in May to discuss the status of the rehabilitation and what her group wants to do moving forward. In the meantime, she’s organizing park cleanup days like the one on May 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information on how to get involved, email projects@manhattancc.org.