Curtis Sliwa lost badly to Eric Adams in his 2021 bid to become New York’s next mayor, but he remains a tireless self-promoter and on Wednesday he enlisted two cats for a media stunt involving rats and the man who roundly defeated him.
The problem of rats has literally hit home for Adams, who has twice received summonses for evidence of rodent infestation at his Brooklyn brownstone. He managed to get the first ticket dismissed last month after attesting that he had spent nearly $7,000 on rat mitigation. He was almost immediately hit with two more summonses for, among other things, allowing a “rat runway” to form by his front fence.
The solution Sliwa is proposing is cats, though of a rougher sort than Tiny and Thor, the two domesticated felines he and his wife, Nancy Regula, brought uninvited to a press conference outside Adams’ brownstone. Sliwa said these were just prop cats. He hopes to install feral ones and enlist a volunteer “manager” to make sure they have food and water.
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“They’ll be like Batman and Robins going up and down the block on patrol,” Sliwa said as he stood outside Mayor Adams’ house wearing a red jacket with “Curtis Sliwa NYC Mayor” on the chest.
Sliwa had talked exactly this way about himself and the fellow members of his civil patrol, the Guardian Angels, when they began to at least ostensibly battle subway crime back in 1979. He was repeatedly accused back then of staging incidents to garner publicity.
Wednesday’s event was preceded by a press release distributed to various New York media outlets. Sliwa arrived across from Adams’ house in the back of a small van that had “Guardian Angels Animal Protection” stenciled on the doors. His wife joined him in carrying Thor and Tiny across the street in a cage.
Curtis Sliwa brings cats to a press conference outside Mayor Eric Adams' Brooklyn brownstone.
Michael Daly/The Daily Beast“A cat perp walk,” somebody joked.
He happened to pass a rat that had been squished flat in the middle of the street.
“That wasn’t a cat that did that,” he noted aloud, pointing down at what then likely became the most photographed flat rat in city history.
The two domesticated cats sat in their cage on a table outside the house as Sliwa detailed a simple solution based on “nature’s way.” He said feral cats have been used with great success in various cities, including Istanbul.
“Istanbul has 100,000 feral cats,” he said. “People treat them as part of the community.”
But he also warned that even feral cats could not eradicate the problem.
“You're never going beat the rats,” he said. “You have to hope for detente.”
Sliwa cited the various ways Adams has sought to battle rodents as Brooklyn borough president and as mayor—everything from glue traps to drowning them in an alcohol solution.
“That didn’t get rid of them,” Sliwa noted.
Adams recently solicited applications for a new “rat czar,” and more than 900 people have responded, including at least one domesticated cat. Sliwa now announced that he would take the position on an unsalaried basis, though only if he could work nights and let somebody handle the bureaucratic responsibilities during the day.
“I’ll do 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.,” Sliwa said.
Word of the offer reached Adams, who told the press,, “I will take him up on his offer. You know, if he says he will be my rat czar for free, I’m going to call him and I would like for him to come on board to do it.”
The mayor talked tough.
“Tell Curtis: Come to be my rat czar. OK, and he’s going to realize this is not a Tom and Jerry playful commercial here. This is real stuff.”
Lest anyone fail to note that this was not just about rats, Admas added, “He could be part of our internship program, because I know he’s looking for a job since he lost the job that he was trying to get.”
Adams pledged to fight the latest rat summonses, issued by his own administration
“I will again challenge these violations and show that rats don’t run this city,” he said.
Back in Brooklyn at the scene of the purported violations, Sliwa kept talking, talking, talking as one of the prop cats, Tiny, appeared to fall asleep. Sliwa noted that Adams has admitted to being scared of rats.
“I'm not afraid of them,” Sliwa declared to the media gaggle he had managed to attract. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
Except maybe obscurity.
