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City's pigeon tradition fades

Rooftop pigeon coops a link to city history

By Lauren Johnston | amNY.com

July 6, 2006

Like rats and roaches, pigeons usually get little love from your average New Yorker. But take care not to refer to these much-maligned birds as "rats with wings" among any of the city's family of pigeon-fanciers.

To this fowl-friendly crew, the pigeons are creatures of grace and tending to them on any of the city's rooftop coops pays tribute to a long-standing immigrant tradition, as famously depicted in Marlon Brando's turn as a bird-loving city longshoreman in "On the Waterfront."

A few of the long-time bird-keepers are featured in the new short documentary "Pigeon People" by city filmmaker Josh Levy.

Through portraits of three men, the film shows that the birds are more than just sidewalk trashpickers.

But the tradition the film traces is disappearing.

It was once a hobby handed down from father to son, but that doesn't happen much anymore.

"Young people aren't carrying on the tradition of their fathers and grandfathers," Levy said.

Colin Jerolmack, 27, a CUNY doctoral candidate whose studies touch on the relationships between people and pigeons, says the changes are tied to real estate shifts.

"It's partly because of gentrification," he said.

The city has stiffened its zoning codes over the years as traditionally immigrant neighborhoods like the Lower East Side have become home to more affluent residents, making it harder to keep rooftop coops.

The other reason, he said, is the variety of available leisure activities like video games and television. "The kids just aren't interested, they see it as chore."

As trends in immigration to the city have changed, the faces of its pigeon fanciers have changed too.

Outside the Broadway Pigeon and Pets Supplies in Bushwick, it's not unusual to see Italian men in their 70s trading birding tips with black and Puerto Rican teenagers.

The same is true at the Grand Avenue Pet Center in Maspeth, Queens, where the pigeon crowd is largely Middle Eastern, says Dutch artist Anton van Dalen, 67, who keeps a coop of about 40 birds atop his East village apartment building.

"It's an interesting coming together of all these different races of people that share a love for the pigeons and in that way respect each other in a way you don't always see in New York," he said.

There are basically two kinds of pigeon people in New York: high-flyers and racers.

High-flyer keepers either fly only their own birds or play the "pigeon war" games in which the goal is to steal other people's birds and racers fly homing pigeons in high-stakes and sometimes high-cost competitions.

While raising pigeons as a hobby may be dying off, racing them for profit is not.

"Now you don't stand a chance if you can't spend the money and the time," Jerolmack said.

There's a local race with a prize of about $25,000, a Las Vegas race that nets at least $100,000, and a million-dollar South African race.

Serious racers in the racing clubs in Queens and the Bronx may dish out thousands of dollars to tend the birds.

Van Dalen, who is featured in the film, is one of a dwindling breed, first because he lives in Manhattan and second because he keeps a small flock. He moved to New York from Holland in the 1960s and carried his childhood hobby of pigeon-keeping with him to the East Village.

He build a coop bit by bit over a span of 10 years atop the Avenue A building he owns, a structure that resembles a white, wood-shingled beach house on stilts.

"I have a great deal of pride about this work I do with the birds," he said. "It's a very personal thing for me to be part of this whole process of laying the eggs and raising them and flying them. It's like a family that I'm part of and in some way control."