Fifth Avenue hawks get replacement nest

NEW YORK – Pale Male and Lola are getting their Fifth Avenue address back – if the hawks are willing to accept a replacement nest offered by luxury apartment-house owners who ripped out the original, only to be harried incessantly by bird lovers around the world.

Workers Thursday installed new underpinnings for the high-rise nest whose red-tailed hawk occupants were evicted Dec. 7, triggering an avian crisis that gripped the city.

“It’s the miracle on 74th Street,” enthused E.J. McAdams, executive director of the city Audubon Society, which led a campaign to restore the nest, taken down after apartment residents deemed it a health and safety hazard.

As if on cue, the hawks winged in for a brief appearance on the 12th-floor window ledge Pale Male had called home for a decade, delighting rain-sodden hawk enthusiasts and television cameramen on a sidewalk across the street.

On the rooftop, workers prepared to lower the 300-pound stainless-steel cradle to the window pediment. The custom-designed mesh framework has the same anti-pigeon spikes removed when the nest was pulled down.

The boat-shaped device also has a rim to keep carcasses of rats and pigeons from falling to the street, a major source of annoyance for the building’s residents, who include CNN’s Paula Zahn.

“It’s a very out-of-the-ordinary project for a New York City architect,” said Daniel Ionescu, who designed the cradle. “You don’t get a call every day to design a nest on top of a pediment on a landmarked building.”

Audubon officials expressed confidence Pale Male – so named for his white plumage – and mate Lola would return. McAdams said they have stayed close by, frequently visiting the ledge and even bringing twigs.

To underscore the hope they’ll return, workers lugged the heavy metal cradle to the street, where various officials christened it with twigs, then returned it to the roof for installation.

“We have done everything humanly possible for Pale Male and Lola to return,” McAdams said. “Now it’s up to them to come home for the holidays.”

Since setting up housekeeping in 1993, Pale Male and a series of mates have produced about two dozen chicks and captivated nature lovers and schoolchildren who could view the nest through binoculars from Central Park.

The urban raptors were the subject of two TV documentaries and a book, “Red-Tails in Love,” whose author, Marie Winn, was among Thursday’s happy observers.

Occupants of the multimillion-dollar apartments, however, had complained about telescopes violating their privacy. To remove the nest, they obtained U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approval, under a rule that allows removal of nests that contain no eggs or progeny.

Public reaction was swift and angry, as scores of people gathered daily with signs and chants of “Bring back the nest!” Some vented their ire on co-op board president Richard Cohen, Zahn’s husband.

Actress Mary Tyler Moore, another building resident, sided with the hawks, sometimes joining the protests, and hiring a lawyer for a man charged with harassing Zahn and her son.

Cohen later conceded the board had misjudged the situation, telling the Daily News: “We did not fully appreciate the importance of these birds to the people in the city.”

John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society, and city parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe praised the residents’ decision to restore the nest.

Flicker said there had been an “overwhelming response” from Europe, Australia and elsewhere to the hawks’ plight.

“It tells us that birds are a kind of metaphor for the environment that people can understand,” he said. “If Pale Male and Lola are at risk, the rest of our environment is at risk as well.”

Benepe said the residents had broken no laws in removing the nest but “really rose to the occasion” and “spent a lot of money” to put it back.

“Now we just have to wait and see if the hawks come back and build a nest there,” he said.