NEW YORK, Dec. 16 -- At a deli in midtown Manhattan Thursday, a handful of sandwich makers gave Lincoln Karim a hero's welcome. They smiled, pumped their fists in the air and chanted "Lincoln! Lincoln!" as he collected a bagel with cream cheese. Karim, a lunchtime regular here, looked a little embarrassed.
"I can't believe my life," he said with a sigh, sounding fatigued.
Hawk advocate Lincoln Karim, right, is led away by a law enforcement officer on Tuesday after being arrested for harrassing a resident of 927 Fifth Ave.
(Kathy Willens -- AP)
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You can understand the exhaustion, if not the huzzahs. In the past week, this 43-year-old Trinidadian immigrant has been the most militant foot soldier in a seriocomic and highly public war with the co-op board of a super-ritzy Central Park apartment building. Generally speaking, the overlords at an address like 927 Fifth Ave. decide who calls the place home. But last week, when the board ejected one of its most famous tenants -- a red-tailed hawk named Pale Male -- Karim pretty much went nuclear.
Since then, commotion has followed commotion. He did some picketing and chanting with a group of fellow Pale Male fans. He chased, yelled at and scared the heck out of the son of CNN host Paula Zahn, who lives with her family at 927. That led to his arrest and on Tuesday, a night in the pokey. Then he was bailed out by none other than Mary Tyler Moore, another 927 resident and a Pale Male partisan, too.
Oh, and on Wednesday he was fired from his job as an engineer with AP Television.
"I was looking for a change in career anyway," Karim says with a shrug. "TV is a despicable medium."
He hardly seems like the stalker type, which is the way that New York tabloids have been depicting him in recent days. "Judge to Birdbrain: Stay away from Zahn brood," read a headline in Thursday's New York Post. Karim is soft-spoken and contemplative, and at lunch Thursday he brought along a notebook to jot down his musings. He won't discuss his legal troubles, though the news media reported Thursday that prosecutors read aloud in court a police confession by Karim, one that came with an apology.
"I'm sorry," he was quoted as writing. "I knew I should not have gone after the kids." On Wednesday he was released on bail and the judge ordered him to stay at least 1,000 feet away from the building.
Karim says he'll comply, but it won't be easy. Pale Male and the nest at 927 Fifth Ave. have been his passion for five years. Actually, passion seems too drowsy a word. Ever since Karim laid eyes on the bird, he's spent nearly all his free time and every single vacation day chronicling the comings and goings of Pale Male. (The name refers to the hawk's surprisingly white feathers.) Karim operates a Web site, Palemale.com, which is packed with photos he's taken and greets visitors with the words "If you love something dearly, you shouldn't mind suffering a little in its honor."
He's shot about 800 hours of videotape, and he keeps graduating to more sophisticated equipment to keep tabs on Pale Male's life. On most mornings, before all the current unpleasantness, you'd find Karim with a telescope attached to a 32-inch monitor so as many as 100 onlookers could watch Pale Male at the same time, either as he hung out in the nest or hunted in nearby Central Park.
"I don't want to use the word obsession," Karim says, "but if I get some vacation time, why would I go strap two pieces of wood to my feet and go skiing? I'd rather watch Pale Male."
Karim is an avid animal lover, of course, and for a long time he's been reprimanding dog owners who let their pooches chase squirrels, and he's hectored the passengers in the horse-drawn carriages around Central Park. ("The drivers would tell me to get a life.") But Pale Male was more than just another animal. To Karim -- and this is going to sound more than a little weird -- the hawk felt like a creature he'd been searching for his whole life.
"I always wanted a friend like Yoda, you know, someone who was pure knowledge. But every human being I've met, there's always been some disappointment. When I met Pale Male I felt like there was wisdom oozing out of him."
Karim might take all this a lot further than anyone else, but he's hardly Pale Male's only admirer. In 1993, when the bird first took up residence on a 12th floor cornice at 927 Fifth Ave., he was the only known hawk in the city. New Yorkers could identify with a bird who'd chosen the city over the suburbs, even though there was a lot more room and fresh air elsewhere. Pale Male has had 22 kids since then, a dynasty, and many of his offspring are seen hovering over Central Park.
