The big bird downtown is not Mayor Bloomberg but Zelda the Battery Park turkey who stopped traffic when she wandered onto the West Side Highway yesterday. The amazing thing is that cars skidded to avoid her (Gothamist finds this amazing because drunk drivers manage to humans which are larger than turkeys; sure, Zelda was walking around during the day when people are sober, but still, there is no excuse for drunk driving). The Fire Department retrieved Zelda, who later went to roost atop P.S. 234 on Greenwich Avenue. One firefighter explained, "We got him by covering him with a fire jacket and stuffed him in a cage - I suppose I shouldn't say stuffed. We were sent on a wild-goose chase and it was pretty tiring - we were running for quite a while." The Parks Department tells the Daily News that they suspect Zelda was out looking for attention because "it's the bunny's day, not the turkey's." Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe also calls Zelda the mascot of Battery Park and says she can stay there as long as she wants, as long as she remains well-behaved.
Gothamist previously on Zelda and on Giuliani, the Riverside Park turkey. And even though it's in poor taste to bring up eating turkey, we love the idea of Turducken.
