The men behind the 1811 plan laying out Manhattan’s streets decided that the island should have no alleyways. That had its benefits, but it meant that people inhabiting narrow Manhattan and its narrow streets had no place to put their trash. In 2023, rats exalt at the all-you-can-eat buffet; Manhattan’s 1.6 million residents and everyone else in the densest parts of the five boroughs grimace at the ugliness and the stench of mini-mountain ranges of trash littering our curbs.