Man Versus Bird On Prospect Park
Richard Meier’s On Prospect Park may have been a welcome addition to the neighborhood for modern architecture buffs and the moneyed set who could pony up a million bucks for a one-bedroom apartment, but it hasn’t been such good news for the birds who call the park home. “An all-glass building adjacent to the park…
Richard Meier’s On Prospect Park may have been a welcome addition to the neighborhood for modern architecture buffs and the moneyed set who could pony up a million bucks for a one-bedroom apartment, but it hasn’t been such good news for the birds who call the park home. “An all-glass building adjacent to the park is a deathtrap for birds,” said Glenn Phillips, executive director of NYC Audubon. “The design is a set-up. It’s putting huge, uninterrupted, solid panes of glass adjacent to a landscape, and that’s a recipe for disaster.” Then again, in the wake of the Flight 1549 disaster, there have been reports that the bird population is too great, though we doubt it’s Canadian geese that are meeting their maker on the plate-glass walls.
On Prospect Park a Bird Killer [NY Post]
Photo by j.morefield
“Then again, … there have been reports that the bird population is too great” – this is hands down the stupidest thing I’ve read today. Yes, we need more glass buildings to kill more birds. After all, jets need to be saved!
If you do a simple google search you will quickly find out that birds flying into glass buildings is a pretty serious problem. It’s actually not up for debate. Just another example of the continuing degradation of our environment.
Oh except maybe the problem is TOO MANY BIRDS!
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11027
Excellent idea. I propose hanging some plastic owls on OPP. It might save a few songbirds, but more importantly, it will give Richard Meier a stroke.
This was happening with a building in my hometown. I would walk by and see beautiful gold finches dead on the side walk. The building helped the problem by putting big Birds of Prey decals on the windows. These warn birds away from the windows. It is a low cost solution and once the building did this it really cut down on crashes.
Brenda, funny sh*t. Hopefully Woody is reading.
The NY Post article author called me after I posted on another venue about seeing dead birds around the building. I assumed bird #1 had just croaked, then when a second twitched before falling into permanent slumber, I suspected it may have hit the building. It’s common knowledge that birds often meet their end when they hit glass. This is however only one of the reasons I question the wisdom of the proliferation of this renewable building material.
Shillstoner,
No one really knows about the proposed Lincoln Road glass tower in PLG, but I’ve seen no activity at the site since last Summer.
The bird death issue was also raised about the plans for the glass tower in PLG. But I heard that that was no longer being built–is that true?
The birds typically endangered, from what I’ve read about this and other problem sites, are smaller migrants, exactly the “good” birds that birders love. (Although it would be wonderful to see some of the excess Canada Goose population crashing headlong into the aeries of well-heeled penthouse buyers; they might be encouraged to think of it as Fresh Direct fois gras delivery.) Personally, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live with glass walls, even with a killer view (weren’t walls invented partly for privacy?), but then I’ve never gotten the whole Sloper walk-around-in-your-undies-in-your-street-level-brownstone-with-shades-up, either.
Great scenario if Woody ever goes back to making funny NYC movies: Starchitect-happy apartment dwellers sipping their shade-grown “bird-safe” coffee whilst the orioles and warblers smack into their window/walls like little feathered paintballs (TWEET! squish…TWEET! squish…)
They shouldn’t allow those damn geese to cross the border. Can’t we train the parrots to attack them???