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Cheap, Cheap:
A Eulogy For An Uptown Parakeet

By Rob Wallace

A couple Fridays ago I left the back exit of the Science Building. I had planned to cut across St. Nicholas Park and catch the C train for the Grad Center. Two steps out and I stopped short. Right there was a little yellow parakeet, tweeting away. I squatted and put my hand out. It was a little nervous, but didn't fly away, probably because: 1) it was curious and 2) some of its tail feathers had been clipped. It was clearly an abandoned or escaped pet.

I inched my hand closer and closer, then scooped it up. It squealed a bit. As I made my way back into the building, it began to bite at my fingers. It was scared-understandably-but eventually calmed down a little on the elevator up.
I took it to Josh Wallman's lab. They work on the physiology of sight with chickens. It's also a large lab with a lot of grad students. It seemed a good place to take it. They know a lot more about birds than I do.

The grad students there found a cardboard box for the parakeet, and placed some feed and water in. The little bugger must have been really hungry as it took to the seeds with gusto. I told the lab I'd be back from the Grad Center later and we'd decide custody then.

When I got back the bird had fluffed itself up and was sleeping on one of the grad student's shoulders as he did some work. Clearly it was really a sweet bird and had quickly gotten comfortable in its new digs. It was agreed that the bird would stay in the lab, even over the long Columbus Day weekend. Plenty of food and water would be provided. It would be placed in its own cage. And people would be stopping by to do their weekend work. They'd be able to check up on the bird.

I came back to City after the long weekend and was told the parakeet was dead. City College had killed it. Here's how.

For some reason CCNY can only or will only change the Science Building's air from cold to warm once a year. No back and forth depending on the weather. Cold air is pumped in even as temperatures drop into the forties and under outside.

This has generated the absurd October City College tradition whereby occupants in the Science Building spend up to weeks at a time wearing their winter coats and gloves while they work. Valuable fruit-fly stocks have to be incubated with space heaters.

So during the weekend the parakeet froze to death.

Moreover, as the gym's floor was being revarnished that weekend, Security allowed no one into the building. The grad student whose shoulder the parakeet had taken a liking to was not allowed in despite repeated attempts to check on the bird. He was not alone. Several undergrads whose lab jobs include feeding lab animals on the weekends were not allowed in either. That forced them to call their professors who, pissed off their weekends were disrupted, had to make the long trip to City. The profs snuck into the back of the Science Building and up to their labs to feed their animals like thieves in the night.

One undergrad was allowed into the building only after she signed a waiver indemnifying the College of any lawsuits should she become sick in the next five years from the gym's fumes.

To me the dead parakeet is symbolic of CCNY's chronic illness. Rather than admit or correct its mistakes, the College is more interested in making sure it isn't sued for them. Good turns are rewarded with bureaucratic bumbling. Enthusiastic professors are marginalized or demoted. Innovative programs defunded. Saved birds snuffed.

I'd prescribe a serious gut-check: Administrators unable or unwilling to do what must be done to make CCNY a rational place in which to work must be removed, their wings clipped.

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