The dazzling views of Central Park come with a dark side.
Each spring and fall, dead and injured birds litter the front sidewalk and interior courtyard of a glassy, crescent-shaped building of about 50 condominium units on the northwest corner of the park. The casualties are brightly colored travelers on migrations that would normally take them hundreds or thousands of miles.
From tiny yellow warblers to large, elegantly marked woodpeckers, their journeys end at the building, Circa Central Park, when they crash into glass they can’t see.
The deaths have brought outrage from bird advocates, shame on social media, disapproval from neighbors and even stronger disapproval from the residents’ own children. News articles have labeled the building a “death trap.” Online reviews became an embarrassment; a simple address check by dinner guests could lead to uncomfortable questions about dead birds.
Circa Central Park certainly isn’t the only bird-killing building in the city, but it appears to be among the worst. Last year, the number of window strikes at Circa put it in the top three among buildings monitored by NYC Audubon. Now residents are trying to fix the problem, joining a small but determined global push to make glass more bird-friendly.
“Circa is so important because it’s individuals,” said Dustin Partridge, the director of conservation and science at NYC Audubon, which worked with Circa on their addition of bird-deterring window film, a stick-on pattern that makes glass more visible to birds. “These are residents that are making a rare decision and they’re helping save hundreds or thousands of birds a year.”