6th Avenue Creep-Out

(From Newsday -- By Carl MacGowan)

Videographer RAFAEL GARCIA looked through the windows of a KFC/TACO BELL restaurant in GREENWICH VILLAGE on Friday morning and saw 30 to 50 rats clambering over chairs, tables and children's high chairs.

"I looked in the window and seen these rats and said,
'Holy -- ,'" said Garcia, 52. "There were enough creatures in that room that they could have devoured a human being. They were hungry mothers. It was a frenzy."

Garcia, sent by a TV news producer to check on the tip of a pre-dawn commotion outside the Sixth Avenue restaurant, scrambled back to his van for his gear.

As he stood among the 20 or so people gathered outside and filmed the stomach-churning scene, the rats came to the front window as if playing to his camera, Garcia said.

"They seemed to be enchanted by the light," the independent news videographer said.

Within a few hours, Garcia's footage was all over morning television news shows and the Internet.

By noon, the restaurant at 331 Sixth Avenue was closed.

Before nightfall, the story was notorious worldwide.

6th Avenue Creep-Out