Flying Rats or Aristocrats?
Written by Colin Jerolmack to The New York Times, September 3, 2006

To the Editor:
Re Warren St. John’s “New Breed of Lawyer Gives Every Dog His Day in Court,” September 3, 2006

The definitional wrangling over Kline and Streit’s pigeons should make us reconsider whether our perceptions of animals are grounded in their “natural” characteristics. Pigeons, to many urbanites, are “rats with wings.” This label is used to justify their entrapment and extermination. Meanwhile, dogs, as “companion animals,” are perceived by guardians as family members. Those who raise homing pigeons seek to defend their “unique” birds from defamation, yet they often do so at the expense of “street pigeons” by arguing that their birds are biologically distinct.

The case of Kline and Streit confuses these seeming “natural” facts. By reclaiming these feral pigeons as companions—and through a legal redefining of them as not biologically different (read inferior) than homers—Klein and Streit bring the birds back into the domestic sphere and our moral consideration. Have the pigeons changed as these conceptual markers do? No; yet while these lucky pigeons live it up in a swanky apartment, “rats with wings” are exterminated outside the door.

—Colin Jerolmack
—Brooklyn NY

EDITOR’S NOTE
This is a response to an article about Gela Kline and Al Streit, who were about to be evicted from their rent stabilized apartment by the coop board because they were raising three pigeons in their home. The legal argument crafted in their defense attorney was that the owners’ pigeons were not commonly reviled street pigeons, but altogether different and superior animals.

There Goes the Neighborhood (Bar).
Written by Paul Ewen to The New York Daily News, September 7, 2006.

To the Editor:
Don’t know if you are the right people to send this to, but I wanted to let you know about a very disturbing happening on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. After opening in 1942, The P&G Cafe is losing its lease to the money-hungry (my own biased opinion) co-op board that is its landlord. The P&G is on West 73rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

The P&G is the place that my father took me for my first beer. It also has been a welcomed refuge from the constant glitz of New York City for me, my friends and countless customers throughout its 64 year existence.

I think it is high time for someone to start protecting long-standing establishments across the state. These bars/cafes add character and folklore to the neighborhoods they are a part of in our New York. Across the state, old bars are getting their leases un-renewed or having their buildings torn down so developers can build condos, pharmacies, store-front banks, etc.

I think development is good, but it also has to be responsible. It is high time that someone put their foot down and declared these old-time places Landmark Commercial Businesses. Under this protection, only fair and reasonable rent hikes would be allowed. Thus preserving the character of our neighborhoods across New York City and New York State.

—Paul Ewen
—Brooklyn, NY