When a peacock escaped from the Central Park Zoo on Tuesday, the photographer Landon Nordeman, a frequent contributor, happened to be in the neighborhood. Choosing not to defy any peacock stereotypes, the bird had settled into a posh building on the Upper East Side, 838 Fifth Avenue, in a fifth-floor ledge with a Park view. He may have been free from captivity, but was no less the object of gawking. While passers-by spent the day photographing the bird on the lam, Landon spent the day—from 11 A.M. until 10:30 P.M.—photographing them. (The bird outlasted them all, staying until 6:45 the next morning.)
One of the rubberneckers turned out to be Rupert Murdoch, who lives in the co-op next door, at 834. (See slide 6.) His recent tribulations seem not to have dimmed his childlike sense of wonder. (He may even have been strutting; it was the same day that his pie-throwing assailant was sentenced to six weeks in prison.)
“There’s something about the variety of people within this series that I can’t let go of,” Landon wrote in an e-mail. “Old people, kids, Murdoch, the guy collecting cans, a cop, the guy in the suit and hat, the old ladies, the families, the tourists,” he said, “all democratically lumped together by a fugitive peacock!”
Here’s a selection of Landon’s photographs.
