For more than a decade, the Fifth Avenue hawks have brought a touch of the wild to Manhattan’s concrete canyons. The raptors that captured the hearts of a city inspired a documentary, a book and reams of newsprint.
They have also inspired thousands of tourists and locals alike, who thrilled to see the birds hunting in Central Park and nesting on a ledge on one of New York’s most elite apartment buildings.
But now the residents who shared their building with the red-tailed hawks have destroyed their nest, leaving New York’s most famous avian citizens homeless.
The strike was greeted with an explosion of outrage. Protests have been organised, stories splashed across newspapers and, in a move typical of New Yorkers, lawyers summoned. Hawks that live at an address such as 927 Fifth Avenue cannot be evicted without a fight.
”I am devastated. I am livid with anger that anyone could do such a thing as this,” said Marie Winn, author of the bestseller Red Tails in Love, which chronicled their lives since their arrival in New York 13 years ago. Dubbed Pale Male and Lola, the birds attracted a fanatical group of supporters.
Now the same people are gathering daily to protest. On Friday night, as rain poured, a hardy group of 30 or so protesters carried signs saying ”Shame on 927” and heckled any of the hyper-wealthy residents who appeared.
”The people in that building are heartless,” said elderly Lee Stinchcomb, sheltering under a large umbrella. ”It is just unbelievable this could happen.”
Those sentiments have echoed across the media. The New York Times devoted an editorial to the matter.
”The hawks have gone out of their way to learn to live with us. The least the wealthy residents of 927 Fifth Avenue could have done was learn to live with the hawks,” the paper fumed.
In the tabloid New York Post, columnist Andrea Peyser was blunt.
”Evict the evil bird-haters!” she wrote.
The besieged inhabitants of 927 have become the most hated people in the city. Their official reason for removing the nest is that it presented a health and safety problem. Residents complained of bird droppings, the remains of pigeons littering the pavements and of the nest’s twigs undermining the building’s façade.
”The nest was removed on the advice of the cooperative’s engineer in order to comply with New York City law,” was the sniffy statement.
Lawyers acting for the board have refused to elaborate, but the hawks’ supporters believe there is another reason. The birds had attracted so many binoculars and telescopes that the well-heeled residents of 927 were fed up with being watched.
The building’s residents include multimillionaires such as financier Bruce Wasserstein and real-estate mogul Richard Cohen and his glamorous wife, CNN presenter Paula Zahn.
But the most famous inhabitant, actress Mary Tyler Moore, has joined the protesters. She fingers Cohen for the blame. CNN has been forced to issue a statement in defence of Zahn.
”[She] had nothing to do with this,” the station said. It declined to comment on her husband’s role.
The reaction of New York seems typically over the top. But in one of the most urban environments in the world, the birds were a reminder that Manhattan was once a wooded island in an ocean bay.
The NYC Audubon Society, a wildlife pressure group, is now in talks with the building’s owners, pressuring to have the birds’ old ledge restored. The society has even been offered $100 000 to help by one hawk fan.
”They had moved far beyond being just hawks,” said Ygal Gelb, of NYC Audubon. ”They were a symbol of freedom for many people.”
Pale Male and Lola have already made a contingency plan: the upmarket Carlyle hotel, where the penthouse suites are a mere $1 500 a night. For humans, that is. — Guardian Unlimited Â