CITY LIMITS (sidebar): It's a bird, it's a train

Amidst the hustle and bustle of rush hour at Amtrak's 30th Street Station, some creatures feel placidly at home. The train depot's 90-foot high main hall is a sanctuary for pigeons. Amtrak employee Tom Rush guessed that there were presently five or six pigeons in the station one day last week. He added that at one time there were up to 12 birds. "They all escaped the fire," Amtrak employee Mary Donahue said. Donahue joked that her boss Thomas Kane, Amtrak general supervisor for passenger services, is the father of all the pigeons. Kane said the pigeons make nests and lay eggs on top of the track-numbered canopies throughout the station. Perched atop the number four canopy two pigeons eyed the passengers waiting for the Colonial, Silver Star and Broadway Limited. One pigeon glided gracefully to a drinking fountain in the corner of the station and promptly began pecking at the marble fixture. "They get pretty much the run of the place," Rush kidded. Curtis Washington, who runs frozen yogurt and beverage stands in the station, said when he operated on the station's main floor, the pigeons were a nusiance. Now his stands are in a side location with a low ceiling. The pigeons occasionally walk into the store, Washington said, but they are no longer a bother. As amusing and harmless as the feathered friends might seem, station officials are working to remove the birds. "[The pigeons are] just a small nusiance problem," Kane said. "It's something we're in the process of remedying." And Rush noted that "when they defecate on the floor they create a slipping hazard." He added that the pigeons are also a health hazard because they sit in the drinking fountain and can carry non-fatal viruses. "Other than that they're not much of a bother," Rush said. According to Kane, "We've contracted to work with an agency that is taking steps to remove them in a humane way without harm." Kane said the contractor has set up cages in the station, but that most of the pigeons "laughed" at the bread crumb bait. He said the pigeons that were caught and released outside were found back inside the station, prompting speculation that the birds are homing pigeons. "They're too smart," Kane said, adding that the pigeons seem perfectly comfortable in the station. Kane said he gets occasional complaints from passengers, but to his knowledge, no passenger has ever been standing under a pigeon at an inopportune moment. He added that people often ask how the pigeons get in the station and said some of the pigeons came in during recent renovations. According to Rush, "They actually walk through the door." While the pigeons gazed intently at the humans in the station, most of the waiting passengers, like Villanova sophomore Rick Mohr, did not return the flirt. "I don't pay attention to them," he said. But the pigeons did pique the curiosity of at least one passenger. "I was just looking at them," Villanova senior A.J. Wojciak said. "I was wondering how the hell they get in here."

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