One of the things you must realize when you’re working on the streets of New York City is you will be dealing with rats in various forms. Alice Stockton-Rossini is the NBC News Radio/Morning AM drive street reporter for Len and Michael in the Morning on 710 WOR.
During her career, Stockton-Rossini has dealt with the actual filthy-slimy rat variety. She’s also dealt with Street Elmo’s who coerce tourists to pay money for a photo they may not have even asked for. Some might say there’s not a big difference between the two.
“They’re like rats. They’re just terrible,” Stockton-Rossini said of the strong-arming Elmos. “They’re panhandlers in a costume.”
Stockton-Rossini has been on the streets of New York for a long time, and the real rats have always been with her.
“I have to use bathrooms where I can find one, and it’s no picnic,” Stockton-Rossini said. “I stopped at this gas station, and I kid you not, a rat the size of a bandicoot ran by me. He wasn’t fazed by me at all. He was huge.”
Stockton-Rossini said rats are a big sanitation issue in the city and will require a whole lot of expertise to take care of it. She said she has one simple suggestion for sanitation folks that might help with the rat problem.
“The city is reluctant to spend money on trash bins,” she said. “The rats got really bad during the pandemic when Mayor de Blasio started limiting the sanitation pickup. The rat population went wild. Trash is piled high like a mountain. What do you expect? Get proper bins and we may not have as big a problem. Guardian Angels founder and GOP Mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa wanted to bring in cats to solve the rat problem. A sort of feline femme fatale.”
In high school, Stockton-Rossini was elected student council president. She was also the first student council president who was suspended for smoking in the bathroom.
“I just wanted to have some fun. I don’t know how I became student council president in the first palace. I had a lot of friends but didn’t belong to a particular group.”
Stockton-Rossini attended Rowan University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in speech, communications, and theater.
“I wanted to go to Philadelphia to study theater,” she said. “My dad told me Rowan was good enough for your mother. You either go there, or I’ll cut you off. The name of the college wasn’t even Rowan when I went there.”
When Stockton-Rossini attended the school it was the New Jersey Teachers College at Glassboro. After a $100 million donation from industrialist Henry Rowan and his wife, the name changed to Rowan University in 1992.
“Rowan had a great campus radio station in WGLS. I spent a lot of time there,” she said.
Getting back to rats, last week the city of New York appointed a first-ever ‘rat czar.’
“That was fodder for our question of the day today,” Stockton-Rossini said. “Today, it was about the rat czar. The mayor waited three weeks to announce Kathleen Corradi has been hired as the city’s director of rodent mitigation.”
If you want to entertain yourself for a while, be sure to check out some of Stockton-Rossini’s street interviews, which take place all over New York. One of her story segments focused on The Watcher, a Netflix series.
“It wasn’t a very good show, not worth your time,” she said. “But the house was rumored to be haunted. A family spent their life savings for this ‘dream house,’ but moved out because of demonic spirits. It’s a house in North Jersey and the show put more drama into the situation than there was.”
Stockton-Rossini talked to people who drove by the address, looking for some sign of demonic possession, or natural curiosity.
“People do slow drives by the address, especially around Halloween. The people that own the house now put up caution tape around the property so people won’t stand on their lawn taking pictures.”
Stockton-Rossini said people are terrorizing the current owners. “The series introduced a fictitious character and these owners are getting threatening notes in their mailbox.”
As a street reporter, Stockton-Rossini may never have been more integral to a city than during and after 9/11.
“I was getting calls from my sister-in-law and other friends and family who had not heard from their loved ones and they were worried. The next day I was driving around the city, and I remember seeing a woman in my rearview mirror behind the wheel crying uncontrollably. She was one of many I assumed had not heard from a loved one and never would.”
Stockton-Rossini said it was eerie as she moved uptown. She said things hadn’t stopped still like you might have expected.
“A huge yellowish cloud hung over lower Manhattan for what seemed like an eternity, but people had lives to attend to,” she said. “It was just bizarre. Trying to get to Ground Zero the next day, I saw a fire truck from Chicago draped in American flags at four in the morning headed to the site to offer assistance. There were ambulances lined up to take people to the hospital but no one to take.”
Stockton-Rossini said she believes in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, people had yet to grasp what happened and were determined to forge ahead no matter what.
“They kept moving because that’s how New Yorkers survive. Period. We just keep moving. I would say most of us were stopped in our tracks unable to fathom what happened, and it took a long time to grasp the gravity of the situation.”
Stockton-Rossini explained it was eerie as she moved uptown. She said things hadn’t stopped still like you might have expected.
The job has been a thrill for Stockton-Rossini through the years.
“I’ve been getting up at 3:00 am, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It takes lots of energy to get out there in the morning. I don’t have the same energy in the afternoon.”
She was born in South Jersey and WOR is located in downtown Manhattan. But she’s never in the studio. Through the years she’s interviewed just about anybody who is anybody in the music and entertainment world.
“I couldn’t believe how short Sylvester Stallone was,” Stockton-Rossini said. “I went to a ton of rock and roll concerts as a reporter for a Philly rock station, sat up front, and interviewed all kinds of celebrities. I don’t go much anymore because I don’t get to sit in the front row or go backstage like I used to and I lost hearing in one ear as a result.”
Another popular Stockton-Rossini video segment involves the Naked Cowboy. Robert John Burck is an American street performer, singer, songwriter, and occasional actor. He is best known for singing regularly in Times Square. He wears only cowboy boots, a hat, and white briefs, with a guitar strategically placed to give the illusion of nudity.
“Naked Cowboy has been around forever,” Stockton-Rossini said. “I interviewed him recently because he came out in support of the GOP candidate for NY Governor. We’ve known each other for years and I asked him how he managed to stay in such good shape. He took me to his car at a nearby parking garage where he does 20-30 pound shoulder presses during breaks, hydrates himself, and gets back on the street no matter what the weather is. The guy has got to be in his 50s and he’s still got that body on him. He engages with the public and makes some money.”
In any event, he’s way better than the people in Elmo costumes.
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
