Here come the Boston pigeons and we're going to beat every last buggin' NY pigeon on the whole buggin' street

I'm a Bostonian by desire, if not by baptism. With the exception of a year traveling around the US and Europe, and the academic year spent in graduate school in NYC, it's where I've spent my adult life.

I act Boston. I (can) talk Boston. I root, root for the home teams. And root, root, root against the Damn Yankees. (Other than in 2001 when, after 9/11, I thought they deserved to win the World Series.) 

Sure, New York may have it when it comes to skyline. Honestly, I can look at pictures of Boston and, unless I see the Citgo sign near Fenway, the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade along the Charles River, the dreadful Pru(dential Building) or the fabulous Zakin Bridge, I'm often hardput to recognize the city as Boston. Even when it's part of the lead-in to a local news program. Oh well. Oh meh. 

New York's skyline, on the other hand, can only be New York's skyline. And the Chrysler Building? Is swoon too strong a word to use for my response when I see it? I think not.

And certainly, The City (that would be NYC: Manhattan) has it all over Boston when it comes to fashion. But seriously, do women in NYC really need to get all dressed up as if they're heading to Fashion Week when they're really running their Saturday errands to Zabar's and the dry cleaner? And in all black, to boot. Sure, they may look glam, but, when it comes to running errands, give me a pair of jeans and an LL Bean fleece. Preferably an old one. With pills.

And when it comes to energy and energizing and excitement, New York has it all over Boston. 

Yet there are so many ways it's better here. It's less chaotic. Easier. Skyline aside, prettier. (The Public Garden may be miniscule compared to Central Park, but it's drop dead gorgeous.) New York may be more driven, more brazen, but, hey, I can't help but believe that we're smarter. Wicked smartah. 

New York's marathon may be bigger - BFD - but ours is older, wiser, and just plain better. And our Fourth of July celebration beats theirs any old Fourth of July.

Plus our subways may be slow and erratic, but New York's are smellier, more rat-ridden, and equally erratic. If not more so.

So I'm a Boston girl.

To quote the Standells' Dirty Water, "Oh, Boston you're my home." (And the water's not that dirty here, either. There are even annual swims in the Charles, which I'm thinking of joining some summer - just not this one. I wouldn't put a toe in the East River.)

That said, I LUV NY, and one of the first things I'm going to do when we get back to normal is get back to NYC. My last visit was last May. Way too long ago.

While our cities may have many dissimilarities, we have a lot in common. Terrible accents, rotten weather, lots of know-it-alls. (Takes one to know one. Or all.) And if I'd given any thought to it, I'd say that both cities have way too many pigeons. And that those pigeons, city to city, are indistinguishable: they crap way too much and when they take off in flight formation, heading right at you, when their groundling peace is disturbed, they can be downright scary. 

As it turns out, "at the genomic level," our pigeon populations are quite distinct. 

Who knew?

After Elizabeth Carlen, a biologist at Fordham University, caught pigeons with a net gun and took their blood samples during a series of road trips across the region, she discovered that birds all the way from Virginia to southern Connecticut show genetic signs of interbreeding. And in a paper published this month in Evolutionary Applications, she and a co-author also report that another separate, distinct pigeon supercity begins in Providence, R.I. and continues to Boston. (Source: NY Times)

In other words, our pigeon population is more selective, more exclusive. None of this gumming it up with a ton of other states. Bostonians in particular, and New Englanders in general, have long had the reputation for being stand-offish, not all cooey warm and welcoming to outsiders. Guess that goes for our pigeons, too. 

“That was really weird to think about,” Ms. Carlen said. The suburbs of Connecticut don’t just mark the boundary between Yankees and Red Sox fans, or tomato-based and cream chowders: They also seem to block pigeons. 

Our pigeons are our pigeons thanks to some greenspace in Connecticut that the NY pigeons don't want to breach. And vice versa. Our pigeons have everything they need here, including, it appears, cute girl pigeons, so there's no need to head to New York to find your little pigeon heart's desire. 

(By the way, it never fails to shock me that tomato-based clam chowder is a thing. Shortly after the shutdown began here, someone circulated a picture they took in a local grocery store that showed the soup aisle picked clean. Except for the cans of Manhattan Clam Chowder.)

Anyway, it's not clear where our distinctive populations will further evolve. Will ours get snobbier? Will theirs get pushier? Time will tell. Til then, much as I like the fact that they're ours, I do wish there were a few fewer of them.

And I'll bet that, for all that vaunted NYC toughness, our pigeons could take theirs.

Here come the Boston pigeons, and we're going to beat, every last buggin' NY pigeon on the whole buggin' street.

So there!