NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Never let it be said that Pale Male, New York's famous high-rise hawk, is not a cosmopolitan sort of bird. To prove it, he's been hanging out lately with the original Cosmo Girl, magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown.
Lincoln Karim, a television news engineer who has turned the red-tailed hawk and his mate, Lola, into a full-time hobby, says that after the pair failed to produce any progeny for the second year in a row, they left their famous nest 12 stories above Fifth Avenue and began flying around nearby Central Park.
When Pale Male picked out a perch on a 24th floor tower of the exclusive Beresford Apartments on the other side of the park, Lola followed. So did Karim with his camera, photographing the birds sitting in an elaborately decorative tower window, flanked by stone cherubs.
Karim later gave copies of his photos to a Beresford doorman, to be delivered as a courtesy to the tenants whose top-floor window had become the hawks' favorite away-from-home roost. That turned out to be Brown, 84, whose book, ``Sex and the Single Girl,'' was a best seller in 1965 and led to her career as the pioneering editor of Cosmopolitan magazine.
Lola and Pale Male, a 14-year-old red-tailed hawk, have attracted a worldwide following among wildlife enthusiasts as a result of nesting and raising chicks in the middle of the city.
Their latest roosting spot is on a tower atop the massive 1929-vintage apartment complex where opera singer Beverly Sills and comedian Jerry Seinfeld are among celebrity residents and Brown lives in a multilevel apartment.
Brown, now senior editor of Cosmopolitan International, which produces dozens of foreign edtions of the magazine, said she had not actually seen the hawks, whose roost is two floors above the terrace of her multi-level apartment, but was delighted that they were visiting the Beresford.
Not so her husband, film and Broadway producer David Brown, who she said was less than pleased with the attention.
``David doesn't want to have anything to do with this. We've never had such a serious argument and we rarely fight about anything,'' she said in a telephone interview.
Pale Male and Lola produced seven chicks at their 12th floor nest ovelooking Fifth Avenue between 2002 and 2004 but none last year or this. Once the nesting season ends, they roam Central Park but would be expected to return next spring to the nest.
The hawks' fame soared in December 2004 when occupants of the Fifth Avenue co-op had their nest removed, claiming the birds were creating a health hazard by dropping animal parts on the sidewalk and an entrance canopy. The nest was restored after strenuous objections from birders and wildlife officials.
Brown said she was not concerned about the hawks depositing garbage on her terrace. ``We'd simply have it cleaned up,'' she said.
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