Strange Chicago #1
In the vein of the Grizzly Man Joseph Zeman known to many as the pigeon man of Lincoln Square found he got along with birds much better than he did humans. If like me you found yourself driving down Western Avenue often you would eventually be lucky enough to see an old man sitting on a fire hydrant just north of Lawrence Avenue covered (and I mean covered) in pigeons. I still remember the first time I saw him I was shocked, a little sickened, and most of all intrigued. So here is a little info the Pigeon Man.
He first formed a relationship with the pigeons during the 47 years he ran a newsstand at the corner of LaSalle and Division. He would feed them, and over time, the pigeons came to trust him. He moved up to the hydrant on Western and Lawrence in 1997 when he sold the newsstand. He would sit for hours on that fire hydrant, feeding a large group of pigeons that would crowd around him and perch all over his body. Drivers crane their necks. Truck drivers roll down their windows. Folks on the sidewalk sometimes slap $5 or $10 in his hand (all of which he uses to buy treats for his friends). He comes every day saw his sitting on the hydrant as the most important work he has ever done. In his mind he was “advertising to the public how easy it is to be good without an attitude; it’s just as easy to show decency as it is to hate today.”
Zeman was an epileptic who was treated poorly as a child by his family, He said, “All my life I had so much backstabbing at home, real problems there. I got to love the animals more, so trustworthy. Fifty years, all I heard was `Shut up, shut up.’ I needed help at home ‘cause I was handicapped. They took advantage of me. Epileptic fits since the day I was born. Because I had so much trouble at home, I learned not to say nothing, keep to myself, just so I can’t be wrong anymore. So they came up to me [the pigeons]; I appreciated the friendship out of a bird more than a person. They’re wordless. They come up with pure appreciation.”
After more than half a century with the birds, Zeman said, he had learned many a lesson. “Stay quiet all your life. Nothing but trust and honesty, low profile all the time, just like I’m another bird, sitting there. They sit on me all day and half into the night. That’s where I got something about me that nobody else has.”
Sadly he died last year when he was hit by a van not far from his hydrant and his birds.
3 years ago • Notes