Dear Mr. Capsis,
While reading the January 2018 issue of WestView, with smiles and frowns, I committed to sending the edition to my 92-year-old father in Florida, who was brought up on the Lower East Side and the Bronx, and a best friend, over on 7th Avenue and 13th Street.
Then I had to stop reading to voice my delight upon absorbing Keith Michael’s “Bird of the Year” column. Breathless with verification, now I am sure the fluttering shadow that darkened my desk in early January was THE raven. This experience was close to one of a kind, only matched by the tiny, fledged hawk that graced our windowsill—downy feathers lifted in the breeze while expressing penetrating squeaks—in the late 1990s in Hell’s Kitchen. Now, thankfully, of Westbeth, THE raven clung to the newly pointed façade, flapping, then flying away, showing off a wingspan that stretched forever—toward the river.
I do love Mr. Michael’s column, and cherish the “Month of the Sparrow” article in the November 2012 issue of WestView, my doorway pin-up. There are personal associations with that story, but that will have to wait until a someday encounter with the author and his corgi in Abingdon Square?
—Leni Schwendinger
