Shaun Abreu ’14CC, chair of the New York City Council’s sanitation committee, aims to clean up Morningside Heights and beyond.

New York has drug-free zones, gun-free zones, car-free zones, and phone-free zones. But rat-free zones? The idea might seem impossible to anyone who has run the gauntlet of swollen plastic garbage bags on the city’s sidewalks and observed the well-fed creatures darting in all directions. One estimate puts their number at three million. But if Shaun Abreu ’14CC has his way, the rat bacchanalia will be wrapped up soon. 

Abreu, who is in his second term on the New York City Council and is chair of the sanitation committee, represents District 7, which covers West Harlem, Manhattanville, and Morningside, Hamilton, and Washington Heights. In 2022, the city council passed Abreu’s bill calling for “rat mitigation zones” in areas where rat complaints to 311 are the highest, including in District 7. Abreu wants his ward to be a model of mitigation for the entire city. 

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