City dwellers think of the pigeon as a filthy food-hawk. But there is a whole other side to the creature, according to Vinnie Torre and Lynne Earing from the Hudson County Homing Pigeon Club (HCHPC), on Newark Avenue.
There are feral pigeons, or “clinkers,” Torre calls them, and then there are flyers, championship pigeons like the birds Earing trains and Torre breeds.
“People say they look the same, but they don’t,” Earing said. “It’s just like a thoroughbred horse. [These pigeons] have pedigrees that go back years and years and years.”
Introduced by Italian immigrants in the early 1900s, the sport of pigeon training and racing in Hoboken grew in popularity in the 1950s when there were hundreds of rooftop lofts.
The most famous rooftop loft in Hoboken was fictional. It belonged to Terry Malloy, Marlon Brando’s character in the classic film “On The Waterfront.”
“It’s really a dying sport.” – Lynne Earing
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He built Earing her own coop – “Lynne’s Loft” – on his Monroe Street rooftop in 2003. She had her first Hall of Fame winning bird in 2007 – a great honor in the sport.
They are now part of the Hudson County Homing Pigeon Club, which has a headquarters on Newark Street.
Revived
Earing and Torre were highlighted recently in a Hoboken Historical Museum chapbook.
Torre is president of the HCHPC, which was first formally organized in 1922 and became a popular place in the 1950s and 1960s. Interest in club and the sport dwindled in the 1980s and 1990s as older members of the club were no longer active.
It shut down for a few years, until Torre revived it in 2008. He also revived one of the more famous pigeon races around, the Hoboken Derby, or the One Bird Derby, which will be held in town in May.
Dying sport
Earing said she doesn’t think there will be a next generation of pigeon racers.
“In Hoboken, I don’t see it happening,” she said. “It’s really a dying sport. It’s a lot of work. There’s no vacation from taking care of your pigeons.”
The couple also belongs to the Lyndhurst Homing Pigeon Club, where Torre is the president.
He said he learned from guys like Frankie Luongo and “Funsy” on the rooftops in Hoboken, and is willing to pass on his accumulated knowledge as he did with Earing, but there isn’t much interest.
Last legal lofts
And unless you’ve been grandfathered in like Torre has, no new pigeon lofts can be built on Hoboken rooftops. Torre said he has the last loft for racing pigeons in town; a few other lofts around house tiplets, or non-racing pigeons.
Fortunately for his sport, he has revived the Hoboken Derby and it has been growing every year for the past few years.
Racing pigeons have two divisions: old birds that were born before the calendar year, and young birds that are born within the calendar year.
The Hoboken Derby flies one young bird per coop 350 miles to Cadiz, Ohio and one older bird 500 miles to London, Ohio.
Finding home
Racing pigeons can be released 500 to 600 miles away from their home and still return within a day.
Much research has been done on how the birds navigate, and scientists believe they use some combination of the sun, the Earth’s magnetic field, smells, and even subhuman sounds to find their way.
The training of homing pigeons is believed to have begun in the 5th Century B.C. in Syria and Persia. Romans used the birds to carry results of sporting events, which spawned the release of doves at the Olympics.
Pigeons relayed the financial information that made Nathan Rothschild an extremely successful businessman. They transported news updates across Europe for Reuters in the late 1800s. They carried important messages in World War I.
Famous pigeon-lovers include Elvis Presley, Mike Tyson, Robert Redford, and Queen Elizabeth of England.
Peregrine falcons, the pigeon’s natural enemy, have recently been imported by towns to be used as a feral pigeon control method, but the falcon does not discriminate against homing pigeons. The peregrine falcon is the fastest bird on the planet, soaring as fast as 200 miles per hour when diving.
Chapbook series
Some details of this article were provided by “The Pigeon Guys,” the 21st oral history chapbook produced by the Hoboken Historical Museum and the Friends of the Hoboken Public Library in a series called “Vanishing Hoboken.” The chapbooks are available at the museum, 1301 Hudson St., or on the internet, www.hobokenmuseum.org. The books are funded in part by a N.J. Historical Commission grant, donations, and work by volunteers like resident Holly Metz, who has edited all 21 booklets.
For information on how to get involved with pigeon racing, call the HCHPC at (201) 659-9340.
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.