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Thread: A New York Story --On Sunday, I was walking in West Chelsea, and I saw what looked like a gaggle of paparazzi outside a brownstone. 1/8
I was surprised, since there haven& #39;t been a lot of celeb sightings during the pandemic. As I moved closer, I saw that a lot of photographers and lookie-loos were looking up, apparently pointing to the building& #39;s roof. 2/8
Oh no, I thought. It& #39;s a jumper. Or a cat in distress. Or a fire. This year has been so hellish, I immediately assumed more bad news... 3/8
More and more people arrived, with longer lenses, cell phones, even binoculars. 4/8
I got to the "crime scene" and looked up. No celeb. No fire. No cat. The lookie-loos weren& #39;t pointing at a window, or a roof, but rather, a tree, with a few golden leaves still clinging to it. 5/8
I asked one photographer if he knew what was going on. In a soft voice he explained that a Western Tanager, a bird seldom seen in New York, had been spotted on West 22nd Street. "Look closely at the yellow leaf above the thick branch." 6/8
The bird, he told me, hadn& #39;t been seen in New York in four years, and may have been carried in by recent west winds (we were, after all, in West Chelsea). I felt great relief that all these folks had gathered--not to witness another 2020 loss--but rather to see a rare bird. 7/8
How lucky I was that a street full of New Yorkers reminded me that if you keep looking up, you might see something rare and wonderful. 8/8
