Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is a thought experiment in which humanity suddenly disappears- from the Rapture, or space aliens who kidnap us, or whatever. The point is that humanity is gone. How long do traces of human civilization last, without anyone to maintain them?
Some things vanish very quickly: most modern architecture is not designed to last for centuries even with human maintenance. Bridges will fall, subway tunnels will fill with water, sidewalks and streets will be broken by weeds, shrubs, and eventually by trees.
Some time ago I posted an article about the recovery of wildlife in the abandoned areas around Chernobyl. Weisman studies the area in detail, since it's a sort of test case for his whole experiment. Wildlife, including large animals, may recover much faster than anyone would expect.
Human-related animals will have a harder time. Cats will do very well; dogs less so. Cockroaches, contrary to what I've always heard about nuclear war, will not do well without humans; they're tropical insects and need constant heat to survive.
The longest-lasting deliberate artifact of humanity may well be Mount Rushmore. The longest-lasting unintentional artifacts will be nuclear wastes, sand-sized particles of plastic, and tires- which, vulcanized into a single superlong molecule, will prove a daunting challenge to any ecological process that tries to break them down.
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