My Life and Times

December 19, 2004WORD FOR WORD 'BIG BIRD'
A New Pecking Order on Fifth AvenueBy PETER EDIDIN

NEW York has its first celebrity bird. Not a mere curiosity, like the dancing chicken in Chinatown, but a player.
Pale Male, the red-tailed hawk resident since 1993 on a 12th-floor perch at 927 Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park, clearly meets the criteria. Not only have he, his mate, Lola, and their offspring (23 and counting) been the subjects of books, documentaries and pilgrimages by thousands of rapturous fans, but he has the political clout to face down some of the city's best-connected inhabitants.
On Dec. 7, the co-op board of Pale Male's building had his nest removed, provoking instant outrage from individuals and groups around the city, country and even internationally.
Soon, sign-waving demonstrators were camped out in front of the elegant building, and while Pale Male soared serenely above the fray, the co-op board sued for peace. Last week, it agreed to let the bird rebuild his nest.
New York Civic, a public interest group founded by Henry Stern, a former New York City Parks Commissioner, collected the e-mails it received on the controversy on its Web site (www.nycivic.org). They show passion, wit, some nuttiness and even a willingness to examine both sides of the question. Excerpts follow.
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If Fifth Avenue doesn't want them, we would love to have them on S.I. [Staten Island]. Our pigeons are just as tasty and not as pricey. We might have more dirt underneath our fingernails, but our noses aren't pointed skyward. We tend to speak quickly and lose our "R's" in the process, but we talk forthrightly and never refer to each other as "lovey" or "darling."
Anonymous
No one mentions the homeless homo sapiens here very much anymore.
L.D.
The board and residents of 927 Fifth Avenue, M.T.M. excepted [Mary Tyler Moore, who lives in the building], have shown the world what pathetic specimens of the human race they are, and have demonstrated once again the continuing decline of Western civilization in all their wanton disregard for nature and the wonderful planet that has made their small lives possible.
C.R.
Thank you for supporting the hawks! Ms. Winters, the owner of the apartment where the birds nest, should be evicted from NYC. How dark is her heart? Goes to show, money can buy you everything, but not class! And Paula Zahn [who lives in the building], I will never watch her ever again! May she move to North Dakota and stay there!!!
F.W.
Disgusting, outrageous, and infuriating. I'm almost at a loss for words.
R.B.
Let's imagine that Mrs. Gotrocks on the 12th floor of that building spills some oil while preparing her dinner (O.K., she's rich, so her cook/maid/whatever does it), and it catches fire. The Fire Department responds, and while the brave firefighter ascends the ladder to rescue Mrs. Gotrocks (or the cook/maid/whatever), he/she is attacked by a hawk, falls from the ladder and dies. Can your imagination foresee the negligence claims against the co-op? They harbored wild animals!! Dangerous wild animals!! They allowed the dangerous situation to exist for 11 years!! You can even remove some of the sensationalism by substituting a lowly window washer for the brave firefighter (or add to it by making it a child leaning out the window to look at the hawks, or increase it further by making it the child of the cook/maid/whatever), but the lawyer's claims probably wouldn't change. And this is NOT an unlikely scenario!
Anonymous
So the residents of Fifth Avenue find their eating habits offensive? Just because your meat comes in a boneless filet doesn't mean there is no carcass. Letting some minimum-wage worker do your dirty work does not separate you from the rest of the carnivores.
Anonymous
Let's make this a cause, and DRIVE THEM NUTS.
V.J.
By the way, the best news - pigeon problems for the rich at 927 will increase because they removed the spikes and the natural controls. Ha!
B.F.
The answer is simple. Like all true pioneers, it's time for these hawks to go west. Over here on West 71st Street, we would welcome them to the neighborhood. Nobody more famous than they lives in our humble building, and we would be honored to work out a suitable roofline penthouse.
T.C.
This public keening over two birds is ludicrously disproportionate to any reasonable aesthetic or moral valuation - and property rights are moral, too. Worry about Islamic terror, Social Security solvency, U.N. corruption, the appalling state of our schools, wasting a billion dollars on an in-town stadium and the insufferable arrogance in Albany (compared to which NYC co-op boards are models of modesty). Fear not: Sooner or later some co-op board will do something really awful, but not this time.
J.C.W.
As neighbors, living half a block away from the nest of Pale Male and Lola, we have been out picketing on the street every day and have sent letters to each resident of the building. The arrogance and total lack of concern of these extraordinarily privileged people is symptomatic of the way many liberals ... only care for what is not in their backyard. If an environmental situation develops some place else, they are the first to show concern for an endangered tree toad in Arizona. They think nothing of blocking a dam or highway project, but let a pair of hawks nest in their building that give the citizens of New York genuine pleasure, they turn deaf ears to what has become a national outcry.
B.G.
The Pale Male episode just proves the truth of the old adage: Money can't buy class.
A.D.F.
Any New Yorker who helps reduced the pigeon population, free of charge, and in an environmentally responsible way, deserves to build a home on Fifth Avenue.
D.M.
My T.R.-style tree-hugging credentials earn me the regular spite of my more conservative fellow Republicans. But in this case, Mr. and Mrs. Male have a tremendous monument to nature (and to man's reverence for it) available to them in Central Park. Can't they simply move across the street?
I don't doubt that some of the human residents of 927 are vile, wealthy cretins, but I don't particularly begrudge them for asking Mr. and Mrs. Male to cross the avenue.
J.F.
Like all issues - I understand there are two points of view - an EIGHT-FOOT NEST! That's bigger than some studio apartments - perhaps the hawk should have been charged maintenance by the co-op - he could earn it from the film rights, etc.
J.D.
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