Lenona
2025-01-09 17:46:23 UTC
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Permalink"Marie Winn, Who Wrote of a Famous Central Park Hawk, Dies at 88
She chronicled the melodrama of Pale Male, a red-tailed hawk who became
an avian sensation as it took up residence atop a Manhattan apartment
building."
Under the photo:
"Marie Winn bird-watching in Central Park in 1998. She gave Pale Male
his name after noticing his unusually light-colored plumage."
Credit...Librado Romero/The New York Times
By Michael S. Rosenwald Published Jan. 3, 2025
Marie Winn, the author who chronicled the avian sensation Pale Male, a
red-tailed hawk who took up residence on the overhang of an Upper East
Side apartment building only to be evicted in 2004, sparking protests by
birders who had been thrilled to watch him woo lovers with disemboweled
rats, died on Dec. 25 in Manhattan. She was 88.
Her death, at a hospital, was confirmed by her son Michael Miller.
After publishing several books in the 1970s and ’80s about the changing
nature of childhood, Ms. Winn began writing a column on Mother Nature
for The Wall Street Journal in 1989. That career turn eventually put her
at the center of an only-in-New-York-City melodrama.
It began in Central Park, where Ms. Winn started bird watching in 1991,
the year an unusual-looking red-tailed hawk arrived from places unknown.
Instead of the dark brown features that typically mark red-tailed hawks,
this one had light-colored plumage. Ms. Winn named the curious fellow
Pale Male. She and other bird watchers of Central Park — “the Regulars,”
as Ms. Winn called them — followed him everywhere.
(snip)
..Marie Wienerova was born on Oct. 21, 1936, in Prague. Her father,
Josef Wiener, was a doctor. Her mother, Hanna Taussigova, was a lawyer
and later a broadcaster. After emigrating to New York City in 1939, her
parents changed their names to Joseph and Joan Winn.
Marie Winn attended Radcliffe College and graduated from the Columbia
University School of General Studies in 1959. She became a freelance
journalist, contributing articles to The Times and other publications.
She married Allan Miller, a filmmaker, in 1961.
As they started a family, Ms. Winn began publishing books for young
readers, including “The Fireside Book of Children’s Songs” (1966), for
which her husband wrote the musical arrangements; “The Man Who Made Fine
Tops: A Story About Why People Do Different Kinds of Work” (1970); and
“The Sick Book: Questions and Answers About Hiccups and Mumps, Sneezes
and Bumps, and Other Things That Go Wrong with Us” (1976).
In 1977, Ms. Winn wrote “The Plug-in Drug: Television, Children, and the
Family,” a social critique about TV’s role in the home. The book was
widely praised. Writing in The Times Book Review, the television critic
Stephanie Harrington called it a “multiple warhead launched against the
great American pacifier.”
Ms. Winn followed with “Children Without Childhood: Growing Up Too Fast
in the World of Sex and Drugs” (1983) and “Unplugging the Plug-in Drug”
(1987), a sequel to her earlier book.
She also translated works by Czech writers, including Vaclav Havel, the
playwright who was the last president of Czechoslovakia.
Along with her son Michael, Ms. Winn is survived by her husband; another
son, Steven; and four grandchildren. Her sister, the New Yorker writer
Janet Malcolm, died in 2021...
(snip)
There are 23 comments, pretty much all about the hawks.
https://www.instagram.com/annewatkinswatercolor/p/DEbbXh2NUX4/?img_index=1
Anne Watkins: "Today I learned that Marie Winn, person extraordinaire,
died on Christmas. Aw. She was ever ebullient, funny and quick like the
birds she loved to watch. The prettiest voice you can imagine. Every
word a song note. I have stories about Marie but for tonight will just
say read her if you can. Her voice on the page is her through and
through. I painted this little tree to sit with the feeling of this
fresh sad news..."