Bushwick Culture
The Pigeon Flyers: Bushwick’s Kings of the Sky
A tornado of pigeons flies above their DeKalb Avenue coop. Pigeon flying can trace its roots back to medieval Italy, and still enjoys popularity throughout Brooklyn. — Photos by Paul Cox
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Any resident of Bushwick who occasionally looks upwards will have noticed that our pigeons are not like others. Wheeling in tight formation, a flock of dozens or even hundreds of birds circles the rooftops on a summer’s day, and a view of the horizon takes in other avian whirlwinds scattered over the neighborhood. A closer look – by a birder, at least – will reveal white wingtips and a riot of mottled coloration quite distinct from the usual street pigeon. The breed is the New York Flying Flight, a creation of the city, and the behavior is finely tuned, part of a great aerial game going back to medieval Italy.
If you want to learn about what’s going on up there, you have two good options. You can read the work of Colin Jerolmack, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at NYU, who spent three years researching pigeon flying in our neighborhood for a PhD, a paper in the journal Ethnography and an upcoming book, The Global Pigeon. Or you can visit Broadway Pigeon & Pets, at 1622 Broadway below the Halsey Street JZ stop, on a Sunday morning.
There used to be many more such shops around the city and across the river in New Jersey, catering to a century’s worth of working-class Italian flyers best known to Hollywood as Marlon Brando’s Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. Now Broadway Pets is one of the few, and on Sundays flyers gather here from all over Brooklyn and Queens. Joey Scott, a welcoming Italian-Brooklynite, has run the shop for the last seven years. The weekend crowd sit on fifty-pound bags of pigeon feed – Vinny’s Special, Super Crack, Developer – separated by a partition from the walk-in coops in the back. Joey is wheeling out bags of cheap Park mix on a hand truck, “for a lady in Queens who feeds the wild pigeons in the park. She orders eight bags every week.” There’s interest in a cage of young white birds in the back; some are homers, and some are rollers, bred to perform forward tumbles in flight. Someone asks which belong to which breed: “Send them out, and the ones that don’t come back are rollers,” Joey jokes.
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Homing pigeons are a whole other game, one that is also popular across Brooklyn and in high-stakes pigeon racing leagues around the country – and about to get more exposure with an Animal Planet series in the works starring Mike Tyson, who grew up racing pigeons in Brownsville. In Bushwick, as well as a few other pockets scattered as far as Canarsie and Ozone Park, another tradition survives which involves much larger flights of the specialized New York Flyers. Simply called pigeon flying, this sport can be traced back to the northern Italian city of Modena and the fourteenth century. The Triganieri of Modena bred pigeons for two behavioral traits: to fly straight up towards the clouds rather than outwards, and to be obsessive flockers. Brought to the Lower East Side by nineteenth century immigrants, the game remains the same: don’t lose your birds, and with any luck, catch a few of your neighbors’ through sheer force of flocking instinct.
The old art survives in a few disparate spots outside of Modena: the city of Homs in Syria; parts of Turkey, and by extension, the strongly Turkish neighborhood of Kreuzberg in Berlin; and here, in a Brooklyn neighborhood of fading Italian presence. Rooftop pigeon coops are no longer six to a block here as the old timers recount, but the tradition is alive enough to fill Bushwick with a battle of wills every sunny Saturday. When the last generation of Italian children moved away, many of the old flyers took in young African-American and Puerto Rican men to help take care of their birds, and this new group, now middle aged, carry the flag.
One flyer, whose name is Aaron Marshall but who goes by Earl in this circle, extends the offer of a rooftop visit. At seven in the morning on a following Saturday we meet the Greek, an old-guard flyer of few words who keeps several hundred birds on top of an apartment building on DeKalb Avenue. With a view reaching from the Hell Gate to the Narrows, the spot commands an overlook of most other flights in the area. White-tipped wings are already aloft when we arrive, but these are only the bottom flight; the top flight is far up in the clouds, almost out of sight, and we have to squint long and hard to spot them. The Greek waves a pirate flag on a long pole to urge the birds even higher.
Other flights come and go in the distance – including a huge tornado from a warehouse roof which Earl says houses over a thousand birds, as well as a few small teams of homers on practice runs – but the Greek keeps his up for more than an hour, by the end of which the skies are mostly clear. The top and bottom flights meet and wheel around the roof, returning to the lower realms at their leisure before landing, as a single body, on the roof of their coop. Immediately the Greek spots and grabs two strangers, birds that have strayed from other flights, as evidenced by their differently colored leg bands. But “when you’ve been doing this as long as me, you don’t need to look at the bands. You know your birds,” he swears.
The two stray pigeons go in a separate carrying cage: the day’s winnings. They will be traded in tomorrow on Broadway for cash and bragging rights, all the sweeter if the owner of their leg bands is present. In this other neighborhood above Bushwick, this open field of medieval battle, there’s a lot to brag about.
natalie August 3rd, 2010 at 1:30 pm
thank you so much for sharing. i’ve often wondered about these birds circling the area. i see them every morning as i wait for the m train at knickerbocker.
c-mon August 3rd, 2010 at 2:40 pm
cool! so glad to get the story behind the birds… i shot a video of them a while back!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeCTgHu5_E8
Catfish Polishman August 3rd, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Really? are you now boasting about bushwick pigeons? this is asinine.
Dresden August 3rd, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Lamest yet. So lame. Maybe write a story about the panhandler in front of BK Natural? I’d like to learn more about that guy.
Kevin August 3rd, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Awesome post. Thanks!
thunkitgood718 August 4th, 2010 at 8:00 am
will some enterprising person please bring in falcons, hawks and owls en masse to decimate this legion of filthy, disease-bearing, crap machines?
no one needs any more of these things. why celebrate them? there’s a reason why it’s illegal to feed them (and i’ll bet, deliberately house them) in this city.
it’s unhealthy to have so many of them and the population of these parasites should be reduced dramatically.
attention predators! this way to the buffet!!!
Brandon August 4th, 2010 at 8:43 am
What the heck is wrong with commenters 3-5? How do you not find this totally unique and awesome? I love watching those flights– it never ceases to amaze me. Great article.
Brandon August 4th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Although I would like to get the story on the panhandler on Bogart. What a d-bag.
Captain Sensible August 4th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Awesome article! Love it.
thunkitgood718 August 4th, 2010 at 11:41 am
histoplasmosis – infection occurs when spores of a fungus in soil contaminated by pigeon droppings are carried by the air are inhaled. disease can cause high fever, blood abnormalities, pneumonia and even death.
cryptococcosis – just like histoplasmosis, infection is caused when the yeast-like cells of the fungus found in pigeon droppings are inhaled. generalized form begins with a lung infection and spreads to other areas of the body, particularly the central nervous system, and is usually fatal unless treated.
sound good? have kids? (or ever plan to?) still want thousands of these things flying overhead showering your nabe with millions of spores?
i have nothing against pigeons in general. there are just too many of them in this city in close proximity to people. therefore, they should not be housed, they should not be fed. don’t worry, plenty of them will make it. they won’t go extinct.
use your head. don’t encourage this filthy practice of racing pigeons by glorifying it. it’s a health risk to all new yorkers.
New in Bushwick August 4th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Agreed – I have nothing against birds either. However, the bird house should NOT be situated in the residential area. Open field is ideal – such as you see the houses on Open field in my coutry, Japan, and I get to see in England as well.
Many people do not have brains….over here, in Bushwick??
rachel August 4th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
there is an amazing film about pigeon flying in brooklyn called ‘keep em flying’ by renee fraser and ann-carol grossman. any fans of this dying sport should for sure check it out.
Matt August 4th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
lighten up Francis. I mean – thunkitgood. We’ve all survived this long. Your fear of pidgeon zombies is while not unfounded, it IS at least…overfounded. Or something.
Chris Glazier August 4th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
you know godwin’s law, the adage that says the longer an online discussion goes on, the greater the chance somebody will call somebody hitler? there must be a name for the similar occurrence in which people eventually drag things down to that ‘think of the children!’ logic. unless you’re the kings of leon’s dad, i don’t think you have much to worry about.
Paul Cox August 4th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
For the record, the keepers only feed and water their birds AFTER flying them to keep all the droppings in the coop. Watching a hundred-odd birds fly for an hour and produce no droppings, it seems to work. The roof and surrounding sidewalks remained totally clean.
Thus if anyone got sick from these pigeons it would only be the keepers, but they wash their hands and stay healthy like anyone else who deals with animals. As far as serious health hazards in Bushwick go, domestic pigeons don’t even rate.
thunkitgood718 August 5th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
tell ya what, why don’t you have one of these guys move their coop to the top of the building you live in and then see just how much you like living there.
i don’t buy the idea that pigeons only crap where they’re “supposed” to nor do i believe for a second that the keepers really attempt to do what you say they do.
think of the many owners of dogs who are ever so considerate of others using the sidewalk.
too many birds in a small space in close proximity to lots of people. it’s not a good idea.
can’t believe it’s necessary to say this in 2010!
sweetser August 5th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I totally expected a comment like this from a Nazi like you. But for real, lighten up everyone! The birds are a cool part of Bushwick and they don’t carry guns or ask you for money.
Michael August 7th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mOfhG16Wc
MKJ August 21st, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I can see them out the back of my building and one of the reasons I love living in Bushwick. But tell me something, what about all the you know do-do?
MKJ