Gross Picture of the Day: New York City's Ugliest Rat

In what is, quite possibly, the least appealing photo contest ever, the Transit Workers Union Local 100 asked riders to submit photos of the nastiest-looking vermin they encountered on their routes.

The winner, snapped on the platform of the Seventh Ave.-53rd St. station is, by basically every definition, pretty awful. Winner Michael Spivack, an architecture firm executive and photography buff, told the New York Daily News:

"I was waiting for the D train when I saw something on the platform ... The thing wasn’t moving but it was alive. I got as close as I dared to get."

His prize? A free monthly MetroCard.

The contest was called to shed light on the the union’s “New Yorkers Deserve a Rat Free Subway" campaign. It even has its own website, where users can submit disgusting rat photos, rate other disgusting rat photos and share their own tales of rat terror. But it has a serious purpose - the union is calling on the MTA to step up garbage collection and seal some of the refuse storage rooms better.