The Al Oerter Olympic Gymnasium as well as the Olympic Swimming Pool across the expressway, sit below the shadows of the Van Wyck Expressway in Flushing Meadows Park just north of the Long Island Expressway. These buildings were a gift from the NYC Olympic Committee as a remnant of the required infrastructure built for the unsuccessful bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics in New York City. Al Oerter was a four-time Olympic gold winning discus thrower who grew up in Astoria Queens and an appropriate person to name this beautiful well-equipped gymnasium in memory of. It is shining jewel within the city’s recreational system.
Outside the building and high above the low relief orange maple-leaf symbol of the Parks Department stands the most cantankerous, obstinate pigeon that you have ever seen. An opportunistic and courageous fellow not frightened by the imposing razor-sharp structures that line every level surface below the awning to dissuade him from landing there and warning him to find housing elsewhere. He reigns alone on his lonely perch unimpressed by these sharp pointed weapons of war that he is encumbered with as he carefully bobs around these obstacles. The inverted Swords of Damocles are welded in steel, a forest of lances, spears and swords to dissuade him from making his home here. The American spirit of resistance to tyranny is personified by this simple pigeon standing in the midst of this homage to Vlad the Impaler!
Jim-April 25’
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