An April NY Times article by Joseph Berger focused on the egalitarian, colorblind brotherhood of pigeon breeders.
“When New Yorkers consider the subculture of people who raise pigeons on rooftops, many are likely to think of Terry Malloy, the longshoreman in the 1954 film ‘On the Waterfront’ played by Marlon Brando. He was a classic rooftop breeder, rough-hewed, working-class and white ethnic to his toes.
“But that image has long needed some alteration because in the dwindling world of rooftop fliers, as they are known, the men are as likely to be working-class blacks or Hispanics. Many were introduced to the hobby by Irish, Italian and other fliers of European descent …
“Ike Jones, an African-American who manages one of the last pigeon supply stores for its Italian-Jewish owner, Joey Scott, said he learned much of the craft when he was about 12. He then became a helper to George Coppola, an Italian rooftop breeder in Bedford-Stuyvesant. …
“A new book, ‘The Global Pigeon,’ by Colin Jerolmack, an assistant professor of sociology at New York University who spent three years hanging out with pigeon fliers, makes the point that pigeon breeding brought Italian-Americans and other ethnic whites ‘into contact with people of a different ethnic and age cohort with whom they were not voluntarily associating before.’ ” More.
For another take on the rarefied world of pigeon lovers, read A Pigeon and a Boy, which I blogged about here. A wonderful book in many ways, I thought the ending bizarre and so can’t give it five stars. But I liked how it wove the world of pigeon raising and message sending into the whole modern history of Israel. (If you should happen to read it, please explain the ending to me.)
Delroy Sampson breeds his own birds.
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