This floating condo with a bird’s-eye view of the Manhattan skyline is ready for occupancy – by swallows, wrens and their feathered pals.
The avian apartments are inside a 24-foot high aluminum tree standing on an aluminum-skinned “island” that floats on two pontoons.
The public sculpture is anchored 15 feet out in the East River near 44th Drive in Long Island City, where it will remain through Saturday. Artist Chico MacMurtrie said he will apply to the state Department of Environmental Conservation for a permit to move it to a nearby inlet.
“It’s a floating tree and meant to be a condominium for birds where they can gather,” he said.
“The reason I’m building a metallic tree using urban materials is we’re quickly losing trees in the world and the tree is our breath.”
The 10 one-room cedar birdhouses are not visible from the outside – they’re intended for cavity-dwelling birds.
“There’s a piece of bird-friendly oak embedded in the aluminum tree trunk, and there are holes drilled through the wood for the birds to enter, and behind it are the birdhouses,” MacMurtrie said.
The sculpture, which went into the water last Saturday, is not meant to float free. “It has to be navigated like any other boat,” the sculptor said.