Warmth From a Trash Can

Dear Diary:

I came to New York in the late ’60s. On cold nights in the downtown area, on street corners, you could find trash-can fires. These fires were tended by street people.

There were many trash-can fires along the Bowery; for the folks who had no place to go, these fires kept them warm and busy looking for trash, scrap lumber, cardboard boxes to feed the 50-gallon drums, with holes cut near the bottom to give draft. On icy days and nights, much like this winter, these cheery fires were ornaments of warmth, available for those who could not afford the comfort of a coffee shop or the shelter of a hotel.

By 1990 or so, those little islands of comfort disappeared from the streets and parks of Manhattan, I don’t know about the other boroughs but I’d like to think this custom continues elsewhere in New York.

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New York Today: Winter’s Pesky Visitors

Zach Wise for The New York Times

Good Thursday morning. The biting cold continues.

The mice have taken note.

A New York exterminator’s calendar looks something like this:

March means termites.

May, ants.

Summer months are filled, like the air, with mosquitoes.

What’s winter’s pest?

Typically, mice.

PestWorld, an advocacy group for the pest control industry, says 45 percent of mouse infestations occur during the coldest months.

They’re not looking for food, but heat.

Within kitchen stoves, for example.

So has the bitterly cold winter caused a record infestation?

Actually, no. Mouse violations in multifamily dwellings are down from the previous three winters, the city says.

Inspectors issued 3,171 violations from October through Feb. 25 of this year, versus 3,514 in the same period last year.

And 4,600 in 2012.

A mouse expert and Harvard biologist, Hopi Hoekstra, gave this explanation:

“Mice populations fluctuate from year to year,” Professor Hoekstra said. “Because it’s been especially cold, it may have resulted in poor reproduction and many natural deaths.”

Brooklyn is still the leader in mouse violations.

If you have heard something go rustle in the night, we can offer this: a richly dotted map of the pest control professionals in our city.

Tell us your mice stories in the comments, or using #NYToday on Twitter.

Here’s what else you need to know for Thursday.

WEATHER

Get out your neck tube. A cold front is creeping in this afternoon.

Windy, with a high of 32.

Snow falls here and there after lunch. Temperatures fall everywhere after dinner.

The low is 10, but it will feel like zero.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or N.J. Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- Mayor de Blasio holds a black history month youth event at Gracie Mansion and visits a police station in East Harlem with Police Commissioner Bratton.

- Beatles vs. Rolling Stones: a debate. Mike Myers argues that the Beatles were better; the comic Ophira Eisenberg argues for the Stones. At the Public Library for the Performing Arts. 6 p.m. [Free]

- Self-explanatory panel name: “Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in NYC.” At the New School. 6 p.m. [Free, registration required]

- A lecture about Mary Wells, the Motown star who sang “My Guy,” at Jackie Robinson Recreation Center uptown. 6:30 p.m. [Free]

- Lorrie Moore reads from her new short-story collection “Bark” at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. 7 p.m. [Free]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- A rookie police officer was shot in the legs after he pulled a fare-beater off a bus in Brooklyn. [New York Times]

- An old school bus brings fresh produce to parts of the Bronx where it’s hard to find. [New York Times]

- Spike Lee’s anti-gentrification rant resonated a bit in his old neighborhood of Fort Greene … [New York Times]

- .. But Errol Louis of The Daily News called baloney on Mr. Lee. [Dailly News]

- The city comptroller, Scott Stringer, is looking into allegations of price-fixing by school-lunch milk suppliers. [Fox 5 New York]

- Scoreboard: Blazers shred Nets, 120-84.

Joseph Burgess and Andy Newman contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

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