Brooklyn Residents Cry Fowl

Yay! It's gorgeous outside, it's a Friday, and there's a story about an animal bothering New Yorkers - these things make for a very good Gothamist day. In Prospect Heights, a rooster has been waking up residents a little too early with his crack-of-dawn cock-a-doodle-dooing. The rooster's sounds span Dean Street from Vanderbilt to Underhill, creating quite a stir. A sampling of some attitudes:

- "I like to call him 'KFC,' because I'd like to see him on a plate."
- "That rooster doesn't know how to tell time."
- "He's cute. If you can live through the firetrucks and police sirens you can live through a rooster."

Neighbors have called the Animal Control and 311 to catch him, but, so far, they've been unsuccessful - five officers couldn't catch him.

There has been a rooster that kept Harlem residents awake, a rooster who made friends with many races in Chinatown, and a chicken that lived in the Queens backyard of NY Times former restaurant critic/current book critic William Grimes.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on April 15, 2005 11:51 AM

Comments [rss]

Josh

I read this story and thought I'd be the first to comment about my neighbors' roosters (I'm sure there were more than one) in Sunset Park, but . . .

In any event, I'm with Paula; even when my job (and my boozing) was such that I slept from about 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the crowing never bothered me. And there was something delightful, in an old-blues-song sort of way, about coming home at cock's crow.

Chickenhawk

I feel for these people. I had a neighbor in Sunset Park that had a rooster for a couple of years. It was awful. Eventually, I had to call Animal Control. The only good to come out of it was I got my story published in Metropolitan Diary!

lilies

my neighbors had a rooster for a while too (in sunset park... hmm...) but that didn't wake me up as much as the little girl that lived there yelling at it every morning, "hey rooster, please be quiet... no really SHUT UP!" which was equal parts annoying, and funny...

Jimmy Legs

hey that bird was up here in clinton hill the other day! he gets around.

HR

Maybe Paula would like to adopt this rooster seeing how delightful it she thinks it is to have that f()cking thing crowing at all hours of the day.

Paula

What is wrong with people? When I lived in Sunset Park, my neighbor had a pet rooster for a couple of years, rescued after falling from a truck on the BQE. The rooster crowed at dawn (and later), and it was delightful, a hint of Brooklyn's agrarian past. I was dismayed when someone called Animal Control and had the rooster taken away (and to add insult to injury, the caller bragged about it in a smug Metropolitan Diary piece!).
Meanwhile, cars would race up and down our street with their stereo systems so loud that first-floor windows would rattle, but apparently that didn't bother anybody...

Brian

Very sorry, but this article forces me to quoth Alice In Chains-

"Yeah, they come to snuff the rooster

Yeah, here come the rooster yeah

You know he ain't gonna die"

Thank you.