A neighbor’s casual congratulations reveals years of unofficial betting on flock return times nobody thought to mention
Rooftop Pigeon Coop Owner Discovers His Birds Have Been Secretly Racing a Rival Coop’s Pigeons For Cash This Entire Time
NEW YORK – A Brooklyn rooftop pigeon keeper who has maintained a small flock purely for what he describes as “meditative, low-stakes hobby purposes” for the past six years discovered this week that his birds have, apparently, been unofficially participating in a longstanding informal betting circuit run by a rival coop keeper three rooftops away, a revelation that has upended his entire understanding of his own hobby and, by his own admission, “possibly cost me a considerable amount of money I never knew was at stake.”
How the Discovery Actually Happened
Coop owner Anthony Marsicano, who keeps roughly thirty birds primarily for the traditional practice of “flying” them in loose, circling patterns above the neighborhood each evening, learned of the betting arrangement only after a building neighbor, congratulating him on a recent win, referenced a specific cash pot Marsicano had no idea existed, tied to which coop’s birds returned home fastest during a particular evening’s joint flight.
“I thought we were just flying our birds at the same time because our roofs are close and it is a nice thing to watch together,” Marsicano said. “It turns out, apparently for at least two years, there has been an actual informal derby happening, with actual money changing hands between other rooftop keepers in the neighborhood, based on whose birds circle back and land first, and nobody thought to inform the guy whose birds were, per this neighbor, ‘doing surprisingly well in the standings.’”
The Rival Coop Keeper’s Account
The rival keeper, identified by neighbors only as Sal, confirmed the betting circuit’s existence when reached for comment, describing it as “a longstanding neighborhood tradition that predates both of our current flocks,” and expressing genuine surprise that Marsicano had remained unaware of his own birds’ participation and apparent success within it. “Everybody up here knows about the pot,” Sal said. “I assumed he knew. How do you keep pigeons on this specific stretch of rooftops for six years and not know there is money on the line every time you fly them? That takes a genuinely rare kind of focus, just watching the birds for the birds’ sake.”
What the Actual Betting Structure Involves
According to several participating rooftop keepers, the informal circuit involves modest, cash-only wagers placed casually among a small group of neighboring coop owners, tracked through what one participant described as “a group chat that occasionally mentions birds and occasionally mentions considerably more money than any of us should probably be casually wagering on pigeon return times,” with Marsicano’s own flock, unbeknownst to him, having developed a reputation within this circuit as “genuinely fast, suspiciously consistent, and completely unmanaged by anyone with actual competitive intent.”
The Money Marsicano May Have Missed Out On
Learning that his birds had apparently been generating winning bets for other participants for years, without his own knowledge or participation in any winnings, has produced what Marsicano describes as “a very specific, very modern kind of financial regret,” noting he has, by his own rough calculation based on secondhand accounts, likely been the unwitting cause of several thousand dollars changing hands over the years, none of which reached him.
“I am not angry, exactly,” Marsicano said. “I am recalibrating my entire relationship to a hobby I thought was purely meditative. I fly my birds to relax after work. It turns out my relaxation has been generating a betting market this entire time, and I was the only person on these five rooftops who did not know it.”
Whether He Will Join the Circuit Formally
Sal and the other participating keepers have extended a formal invitation for Marsicano to join the betting arrangement going forward, an offer he says he is “seriously considering, mostly out of a sense that if my birds are going to be gambled on regardless, I might as well be in the room where it happens.” He has requested time to think it over, noting he wants to “sit with the ethics of this for at least one more flying session” before formally joining.
The Wider Tradition
Rooftop pigeon keeping remains a genuine, if declining, New York tradition with deep roots across several boroughs, historically associated with exactly this kind of informal competitive culture among keepers, a history several longtime enthusiasts note makes the discovery “less shocking to old-timers and considerably more shocking to Anthony specifically, who came to this hobby later and apparently missed the memo on its full social dimensions.”
Rooftop pigeon keeping’s long, occasionally competitive history across the boroughs has been chronicled by Gothamist, whose features on the tradition have touched on its social and betting dimensions before, and briefly noted in wider city culture coverage at the New York Post. Marsicano says he has decided, after several days of consideration, to join the circuit formally, on the condition that any future winnings be split evenly among all the coop owners whose birds actually participate, a proposal Sal has tentatively accepted, pending what he called “a longer conversation about the specific terms, which apparently now require an actual conversation.”
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/