I went to the New York City Marble Cemetery on East Second Street today during Open House New York, and got to see where Samantha Raven hangs. It is as I suspected, she is in the eastern portion, not visible from the street. Samantha was fairly tolerant, letting me get about ten feet from her. Being that close I could see that it is her right wing that is broken. I don’t think it is possible for her to stalk and kill a pigeon, as some have claimed, she is just not agile enough. Though, I have seen her scavenging a pigeon, already deceased.
I was not able to learn much about Samantha’s situation, other than that she is a rescue animal with a broken wing and that her name is Samantha, not Emily as I was earlier told. Also the raven may be from Wyoming and not Utah as I earlier reported, or maybe neither, not that it really matters.

Not to be confused with The New York Marble Cemetery, a short distance away on Second Avenue.

Update: On my Flickr stream someone identifying themselves as Samantha’s Surgardaddy says: “her wing’s not broken…. rather, aggressive tendon strain that appears to be improving to a point, that after a year and a half of “rest,” she may soon be able to fly on from this block… She was brought from Jackson Hole, WY, mid-June ‘08. She entered Marble Cemetery April ‘09. Richard, the squirrel and pigeon feeder, is the singular individual claiming to have seen her actually kill a pigeon… on further questioning it appears that he had his back turned when she made the supposed “kill”…. The greater likelihood it that the carcass was dropped from above by a hawk finished with its “snack.” Yesterday, Samantha did recover the the sun-dried carcass of a squirrel that was left high in the trees….. I DID see this… my back was not turned…. The Common Raven likes its dinner dead… preferring someone else to do the work…. And, Yes… the red-tailed hawk, yesterday, was spectacular…. hanging in there for a good 2+ hours, despite throngs of high-speed dogs,…. and was, no doubt, considering “dropping” another pigeon so as to fuel further false indictment of Samantha.”