For over a year now, chickens have been mysteriously gathering on a vacant lot on 125th Street in Harlem and hanging out on the sidewalk. Corey Kilgannon over at the Times investigates, and a construction worker tells him, “This crazy guy keeps buying them from the market — some animal-right guy, but I think he’s messed up in the head — and he keeps leaving them here. He thinks he’s saving them, but it’s not like they’re safe around here. Somebody told me the hawks swoop down on them, too. Eventually, the Health Department comes, or whatever, the A.S.P.C.A., and they pick them up. They run out in the road, I’ve already seen two of them get run over. It’s a shame, because they’re cool chickens.” Ultimately, Kilgannon tracks down a homeless man who says he feeds the chickens daily but denies bringing them there: "They find freedom on the city streets, and once they find freedom, they can eat and survive, rather than be put in a pen or slaughtered and eaten. I’m a struggler, and I try to help others struggling." [Photo cred.]