Subway Doves

While a far cry from the exotic subway riding pigeons of Far Rockaway (I need to pay them a visit some time) described in Randy Kennedy’s “Subwayland“, there are some pigeons that live underground in subway stations. I missed my train to take this picture:

The black splotches of gum that cover so many sidewalks and subway platforms in NYC always make me think of a passage from “Roadside Picnic” (English translation is available on the official site for download) by Russian sci-fi writers brothers Strugatsky”:

“And, as was to be expected, there was nothing else to be seen on the road, except for the black twisted stalactites that looked like fat candles hanging from the jagged edges of the slope, and a multitude of black splotches in the dust, as though someone had spilled bitumen. That was all that was left of them, it was even impossible to tell how many there had been. Maybe each splotch represented a person, or one of Buzzard’s wishes.”

The 47-50th Street station has stalactites as well. It’s a very special station indeed. :)

You know, I feel that “pigeon” is just a pejorative for “dove“. Many of the pigeons that I see are probably descendants of the ones that Tesla fed.