What Happened When I Became New York’s Famous Pigeon Lady

Published April 15, 2016
Updated February 10, 2017

Each week, we bring you an incredible experience from someone who lived it. In this edition, New York native Tina Trachtenberg — AKA “Mother Pigeon” — tells us how she came to dedicate her entire life to NYC’s most hated animals: rats and pigeons.

It's Autumn..i will be in Washington square park untill 6!

A photo posted by mother pigeon (@motherpigeonbrooklyn) on

In urban contexts, the pigeon is often regarded as the unsightly, disease-ridden cost of culture. Live in a city with a world-renowned museum? Chances are you also live somewhere filled with pigeons, dismissed by some as little more than “rats with wings.”

That is precisely the opposite of how Tina Trachtenberg views them. The 51-year-old artist and Bushwick, Brooklyn resident does not see a feathered nuisance in the birds; rather, she sees a source of inspiration — and income.

Trachtenberg — whose pigeon art has, over the years, earned her the nickname ‘Mother Pigeon,’ grew up loving animals, but says that it was in the ‘80s that her avian affinity first took flight. “I moved [to New York City] in the late ‘80s,” Trachtenberg said. “I wanted to pursue art…I lived [in Chelsea] and was selling art on the street, doing what I could. I definitely fell in love with the pigeons then. They’re adorable and they just made me happy.”

Although Trachtenberg left New York for a time to start a family, her love of pigeons never waned, and eventually became a creative outlet upon her return. “After I raised a family and moved back to New York, it kind of started up again, loving them.”

“It’s become this obsession of mine to make the world love pigeons.”

Paired with her skills in the arts, this “love” offered itself as a way to take on what Trachtenberg considers an unfair characterization of pigeons. “I wanted to figure out a way through art to make people see [pigeons] in a different way,” Trachtenberg said.

At first, this meant writing songs portraying pigeons in a positive light. “When [my family and I] were on tour, we wrote a song about pigeons. I drew a storybook for the song, and then I would make clothes that had appliques of birds on them. Finally, I saw someone had done a knitted pigeon and thought, ‘Those are cool, I can’t afford them but I can make them.’”

And make them she did, albeit slowly. “At first I made one just to have one,” Trachtenberg said. “It was cute, so I made four or five and took them to a party, where my friends were like ‘Hey, I want to buy one!’”

“The more I made, the more attention they brought. Now it’s become this obsession of mine to make the world love pigeons.”

author
Savannah Cox
author
Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.