My dad was an avid pigeon racer in his youth. Not from NY, but here in Houston, TX. He was born in 1937 and I think participated in the sport for several years - I'm guessing around 1946 or so. He never talked much about it, but my grandmother told me about crating the pigeons up and taking them to the train to be shipped away for a race.

As I remember my grandma talking about it, the racing organization would attach a document to the leg of the pigeon and release it at a documented time. When the pigeon arrived home, dad would pull the document out of the holder and mark it with (I think) some sort of timeclock device to record its arrival home.

He had some trophies from some of these races - I guess he did OK.

The curious thing was he built all of the coops in the backyard of my grandparent's house, and even devised a contraption that would ring a bell in his bedroom when the pigeons came home to roost.

This from a man, which as far as I could tell as a child, thought you "held the lightbulb and turned the house"... or maybe that was just an act?