A Celebration of Pigeons? They Have Their Fans.

New York Times

15-05-2025

Good morning. It's Thursday. Today we'll look at pigeons and the High Line's plan to celebrate them. We'll also find out why the cap on deductions for state and local taxes has become a stumbling block for the $3.8 trillion federal spending bill in the House.
New York celebrates its nuisances.
That's one way to explain why a birder and a lawyer have been fighting to save nests of Canada geese in Central Park. Federal workers had been destroying the nests under a government program to reduce the possibility of bird strikes that affect airplanes. Hazards at 5,000 feet are not the only problem. Canada geese honk noisily, and they foul lawns in parks and fairways on golf courses.
And then there are pigeons. The High Line, the rail line turned park that threads its way through the Far West Side, put a statue of a 16-foot-tall pigeon on a pedestal last fall. Now the High Line is planning something called Pigeon Fest. It may not be for everyone. The executive director of the High Line, Alan van Capelle, acknowledged that New Yorkers had 'a complicated relationship with pigeons.'
How complicated? Van Capelle said he could not think of another event where you could see 'a pigeon impersonation pageant and a panel on urban ecology and bird conservation.' Tina Piña Trachtenberg, who is known to many New Yorkers as Mother Pigeon — and feeds flocks of pigeons while dressed as one — was one of the first people who was invited to the festival, a daylong celebration on June 14. The all-pigeons-all-the-time theme will include swag bags by Iván Argote, the artist who created the giant pigeon.
Van Capelle said that Pigeon Fest would be 'whimsical and fun and avant-garde,' and also serious. 'Our big theme this year is urban ecology and the many different ecosystems you can find on the High Line,' he said. And that meant 'paying homage to icon of the city.'
'People love them or hate them,' van Capelle said.
A hater turned lover, or at least liker, is Christian Cooper, the author of the memoir 'Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World,' who will take part in the panel discussion at Pigeon Fest. (In 2020, he was reported to the police by a white woman who falsely claimed that 'an African American man' was threatening her after he asked her to put her dog on a leash. The criminal case against her was dismissed in 2021 after she took part in a therapy program that included sessions on racial biases.)
Cooper told me last week that he was 'into the real birds — the birds you've got to search for' and that he had been 'very dismissive of pigeons for the longest time.' But he said he had come to see pigeons as 'the gateway bird to the world of birds, and birds are the gateway to understanding nature.'
Some pigeons, he said, are 'spectacularly beautiful.' He described an encounter in Central Park when he was looking for migrant warblers.
'Instead, I'm being distracted by this pigeon,' he said. 'It's almost all white, with three flecks of gray and a slight, delicate rose wash across the breast. I was like, I've never seen that before.' He said he thought he saw the same bird a couple of days later on the very block where he lives, but no. That was a look-alike.
New Yorkers can read up on pigeons, he said, or just observe them. 'Like, watch their courting behavior,' he said. 'Watch those males puff up their necks and fan their tails and strut around, and remember that the next time you're in a singles bar.' Or, he said, remember a line from the Spike Lee film 'She's Gotta Have It': 'Please, baby, please, baby, please, baby, baby, baby, please.'
That is not what van Capelle thinks of on the deck of his apartment on the Lower East Side, where, he said, he has learned the hard way why New Yorkers feel like pigeons are a nuisance. Soon after the giant pigeon was installed on the High Line, real ones descended on his deck.
'They're extremely resilient,' he said. 'They're very resourceful. They don't shy away from a New Yorker who tries to chase them away. I'm learning to coexist.'
Expect another cloudy day with chance of showers and thunderstorms, and a temperature high of 71. In the evening, there will be fog and clouds, and the temperature will dip to about 62.
In effect until May 26 (Memorial Day).
The latest Metro news
Republicans at odds over state and local tax deductions
Some House Republicans, mostly from New York, have gone to war with party leadership over the push to raise or abolish the $10,000 cap on the so-called SALT deduction. That has made the SALT deduction, the amount of state and local taxes that can be written off on federal returns, a stumbling block for the $3.8 trillion tax proposal in the House.
House Republicans can afford to lose only three votes if they are to pass the tax package, but six House Republicans have insisted on a higher SALT cap. Among them are three congressmen from New York — Representatives Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota, whose districts are on Long Island, and Representative Mike Lawler, whose district covers Westchester County and parts of Rockland and Dutchess Counties.
Their determination became apparent during a Republican caucus meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday, when they asked Representative Nicole Malliotakis to leave the room where the session was taking place. Malliotakis, who represents a district that takes in Staten Island and a part of Brooklyn, supports raising the cap to $30,000, while the other three New York Republicans want a much higher cap.
SALT is a touchy issue for those three, especially Lawler, who is considering running against Gov. Kathy Hochul next year. SALT seems to cross party lines, and voters may blame officeholders if they do not deliver sufficient relief to communities that pay some of the highest local and school taxes in the country.
'Folks should not be penalized because they live in a high-tax state,' said Lawler, who had earlier supported raising the cap to $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for married couples. Raising the cap to $20,000 for individuals or $40,000 for couples filing jointly would cost the federal government about $600 billion in lost tax revenue over the next decade, according to the Tax Policy Center.
Even with the cap, New York had the highest average SALT deduction in 2023 nationally, according to an analysis of I.R.S. tax data by the National Association of Realtors.
Tumbling
Dear Diary:
My husband and I were in New York to see 'Good Night and Good Luck,' and I had gotten done up for the occasion: dress, hair, makeup, jewelry, a stunning but impractical white coat and an infrequently worn pair of kitten heels.
As we walked to the theater, the promise of spring was in the air, and I was feeling upbeat. I was gliding along. The next thing I knew, I was tumbling in slow motion onto the dirty pavement at Broadway and 44th Street.
My coat and my ego were a bit tarnished as my husband rushed to help me up. To my surprise, two young men also stopped to help.
As I turned to thank them, one of them smiled.
'Hon, it was totally worth it!' he said. 'Those shoes are fabulous.'
— Suzanne Schneck
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Stefano Montali and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [e-mail].
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