By Daniel Katzive
New York City’s waterfront was once all about industry and shipping, but more recently our shoreline has been transformed by residential development, and old wharf space has given way to parkland. With so many more sets of eyes now watching the water, it is perhaps unsurprising that advertisers and marketers will occasionally make use of the city’s “blue highway” to promote their brands.
New York City Football Club availed itself of a small tugboat and barge to haul a large blue pigeon around the Five Boroughs on Tuesday. The bird passed up the West Side in the late morning, u-turning at Riverbank State Park and headed back down, providing a good view from Riverside Park. The voyage was live-streamed on the club’s YouTube channel.
The pigeon’s “Five Borough Flight” was set to coincide with the Club World Cup, an international club soccer competition currently underway at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Semi-final matches are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. NYCFC did not qualify for the tournament this year.
The barge’s journey culminated at Malcolm X Promenade in Willets Point, Queens, near the site of NYCFC’s future stadium. The club describes the pigeon as their unofficial mascot and posted on social media that the voyage is “a tribute to the city that shaped us and of what’s to come.”
The bird got the attention of at least one Riverside Park-goer on its way back south. “It certainly caught my eye,” said Upper West Sider Elyse Nelson, who stopped to watch it pass by. She found the writing on the pigeon hard to make out, but caught the “FC” and figured it was soccer related.
According to Hudson River Blue, a news site covering soccer in New York City, the inflatable pigeon is five-stories tall and weighs in at 700 pounds.
From Staten Island to Queens, the East River to Flushing Bay — it all leads to the future home of New York City FC.
The Five Borough Flight is underway 🐦 pic.twitter.com/jbsDFJWA1A
— New York City FC (@newyorkcityfc) July 8, 2025
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Birding NY’ers prob threw pieces of bread at it when it came by. 🙄
Here’s the obligatory potty joke: Don’t park you car under that pigeon!
But, seriously, folks, good luck NYFBC!
Just out of curiosity, how much does it cost to rent a barge for something like this?
scary
Please stop flaunting these flying filthy rats. They are disgusting. Pooping
everywhere.
Humans have socialized them, not to mention fed them by littering everywhere, hardly their fault.
I still remember the dinosaurs floating on a barge for the 1864-65 Worlds Fair!