As I approached Central Park’s Grand Army Plaza I was surprised to see what I am sure were three Red-tailed Hawks soaring in the distance. I was still assembling my camera equipment when one of the hawks flew east and out of sight.
Two of the hawks remained and soared in the sky together for a few minutes:
I recognized one of them to be one of the original Crown Building hawks.
The Crown hawk landed atop the Sherry-Netherland hotel and apartment building, a regular perching building:
Statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman from a different perspective:
The hawk didn’t look like it was going to fly off its perch any time soon.
In the distance I saw something floating to the ground. It was a parachuted Army man toy, falling from high up in the sky. I have no idea what building it was tossed from or who tossed it. But it was fun to watch it fall. No one else around seemed to notice it:
I wasn’t able to see where on the ground or street it landed. Since the hawk was still perched and I had to leave the park, I searched for the Army man. I saw it lying on Fifth Avenue (outside the Apple store). It was just behind a construction fence. There was street work being done on Fifth Avenue. It would have been too dangerous to fetch the Army man on my own because of traffic so I looked for one of the workers to ask to hand it to me.
One of the workers stepped out of a work truck, spotted the toy, then picked it up. I called over to him and stretched my hand out, telling him I needed it. He turned and with a half smile (with a cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth), said something like, “Oh, it’s yours? OK” and handed it to me. I tucked it in my bag and left the park. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who dropped it from their building watched the whole scenario from above.
Army man at home:
