A new sculpture in Battery Park claims to honor Nathaniel Katz, allegedly responsible for bringing rats to New York City. However, it's actually the work of Staten Island artist Joseph Reginella, who created a fictional take on city history. As reported by The New York Post, the so-called "Rat Man" bust coincided with the National Urban Rat Summit, an event where health officials gathered to discuss the city's rodent problems. Reginella, known for his pseudo-monuments that re-imagine New York's past, told The Post, “Thousands of people come, take photographs. Ninety percent of them believe it, they go on social media, they tell their friends this wild tale and then they’ll Google it and find out it’s fake.”
Reginella's creations are crafted with a satirist's edge and are designed to weave into the urban fabric for fleeting moments before he dismantles them—a routine that has drawn a spectrum of reactions from viral fascination to bemused anger, including those who lament the acknowledgment of the city's rat scourge, according to Gothamist coverage. His works claim installations like the Brooklyn Bridge Elephant Stampede, and the UFO Tugboat Abduction, the pieces normally displayed for just a day at a time with a history of tugging the collective leg of New Yorkers for nine years.
Reginella states in a statement obtained by Gothamist, "For a minute or two, people are sucked into my world," explaining that his intention is not to prank but rather to offer a momentary escape into a reimagined history. Despite that, some responses have not been so light-hearted; Reginella admits receiving critical emails, with one commenter expressing dismay: "Stupidity at its best. The rat problem needs to be eradicated and you MORONS are paying homage? This country is STUCK on STUPID." Nevertheless, his works have been lauded for inducing public engagement with the distinction between fact and fiction, featured in children's books, and even an example in a textbook discussing contemporary heritage.
Law enforcement and city officials surprisingly seem to take the joke well, as Reginella recounts an encounter with a uniformed officer readying for a reprimand only to take a selfie with the sculpture and without an issue drive away, Gothamist reports. However, due to the growing physical and financial costs, the artist suggests that his current work may be his last, as it could be his most impactful piece yet.
