It was Toni Dalton, a Westbeth artist, who saved the white goose of Gansevoort from certain death on the icy Hudson. The bird had been living on the peninsula for two and a half years, tended at first by Department of Sanitation workers, then by Dalton.
Dalton told The Villager it was she who named him Afflack. She fed him kale and even took movies of him.
“He’d be way out in the river and I’d call ‘Affy!’ and he’d come right back in,” she fondly recalled.
But Dalton said she became concerned this winter after the flight-challenged bird kept wandering onto the ice in freezing temperatures and couldn’t climb back to his shelter. So she called Farm Sanctuary to rescue it. “I said this was no life for a goose,” Dalton said.
After several failed attempts, the white waterfowl was rescued six weeks ago, and is now living on the organization’s 175-acre farm in Upstate New York near Watkins Glen, where he has joined a flock of rescued geese. The relocated Greenwich Village resident, it seems, is making quite an impression.
“He’s showing signs already of becoming head goose. He’s quite a guy,” said Carol Moon of Farm Sanctuary.
Dalton said the story is that Affy, who had a busted wing, was originally found wandering around in Washington Sq. by police, who dropped him at Gansevoort. Roger and John, two sanitation workers on the peninsula, at first fed him and built him the shelter, but one was transferred and the other became too busy, at which point Dalton took over Affy’s care. She’s sad he’s now nine hours away, but knows it’s for the best.
