On one of the first warm Saturdays of this year, hundreds of New Yorkers flocked to the popular High Line, the railway-turned-public park that extends over 22 blocks of Manhattan, to bid farewell to a T-Rex-sized pigeon.
The pigeon, cast out of aluminum and named “Dinosaur,” had been a resident of its elevated perch since 2024. As so many New Yorkers will tell you, though, part of what’s magical about living in this city is that the experience is often transient. In the words of Baz Luhrmann, you should “leave before it makes you hard.” There’s nothing worse than a hard pigeon and so it was that on that glorious day last month, I joined throngs of people eager to get one last look at the monstrous, departing bird.
There’s something glorious about the idea of New Yorkers putting a pigeon, usually vilified, on a literal pedestal
It was a ticketed affair. Pre-sale passes sold out rapidly. My family and I got our hands on some coveted walk-up tickets and what we encountered was a sight to behold.
One of the first things we saw was a real-life pigeon being paraded around on a leash in tribute to its inanimate 16-foot mate. Its name was Orin. Young Asian tourists were particularly eager to snap a selfie with the winged creature whose owner demurred when I asked which street corner she’d nabbed her pet off. Further along, half a dozen “actors” performed a nightmarish avian flapping dance, pausing only to pose for pictures. One of them – delighted to be on a smoke break – pulled off her feathery mask and wiped her brow. “Is it hard being a pigeon?” I asked. “It is on a warm day,” she gasped, a look of disgust and exhaustion on her coincidentally beaky face. She pretended not to hear when I asked about pay. Surely this deserved more than minimum wage.
There were pigeon impersonators. In fact, the winner of a recent pigeon impersonation contest was hosting “pigeon bingo.” There was an arts and crafts station at which people could sketch suggestions for what might take the pigeon’s place – what might be worthy of its prominent plinth. My seven-year-old daughter drew a sloppy slab of pizza, and honestly, pigeon to deep-pan pie seems a logical progression as far as I’m concerned.
Of course, like at any good event, there was merch: mainly totes, though a few people were walking around in pigeon T-shirts. I didn’t linger, lest I accidentally spent $50 on something that felt hilarious in the moment but not so funny hours later when I checked my credit card statement.
It was my parents, visiting from abroad, who eventually signaled it was time to leave. The pigeon people were getting rowdy. Everyone was thirsty. The novelty was wearing thin. By the time we were heading home, the whole episode already felt a bit unreal – like something you can’t adequately convey after the fact. “No, honestly, it was funny,” I could already hear myself saying. “But yeah… you probably had to be there.”
A few days later, there came an unexpected plot twist: a headline on a local news site alerting me to a petition to keep Dinosaur in place. Apparently the leaving bash that was meant to be nothing more than a sweet, final hurrah had been such a blow-out, such a roaring hoot, that thousands – yes, thousands – were calling for the eviction to be called off, for Dinosaur to loom permanently above this otherwise unassuming section of Hudson Yards. At the time of writing, more than 7,000 people had put their names to the plea.
There’s something glorious about the idea of New Yorkers putting a pigeon, usually vilified, on a literal pedestal. But there’s something downright poetic about them protesting – exercising their democratic right! – to keep it on said pedestal forevermore. In a city in which so many things are temporary, maybe the secret to developing staying power is to be ridiculous enough that no one can quite bring themselves to let you go. Sure, pigeons may be revolting pests, but they’re our revolting pests. Long live Dinosaur. I think he should stay.
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