INWOOD — It won’t be much longer till the cows — and the chicken — come home.
Uptown residents recently noticed that the barnyard-themed statues sitting atop the Fine Fare grocery store on Broadway just north of Dyckman Street disappeared last week.
However, an employee from the supermarket said that the two cows and one chicken would return in a few weeks, after getting spiffed up for the season.
“We’re doing a refurbishment on them so that they’re ready for the summer,” said store manager Jason Castro. “We’ve got to touch up the paint, which gets run down from the rain and the snow.”
Castro said the figures, which stand at least 5 feet tall, are still on the roof but being stored at the back until someone can clean and paint them.
The cows and the chicken are unique to this Fine Fare location, which opened in 1997.
Castro, 28, said the store’s owner spotted the statues at another business that was closing and decided to perch them on the roof of his store.
“He’s from the Dominican Republic so it’s part of his culture,” Castro explained. “You can see that all of the murals and art in the store are also about the Dominican countryside.”
Castro said several customers approached him to ask what happened to the barnyard figures.
Some residents even took their concerns to a community Facebook group.
“Where did the Chicken and Cows atop Fine Fare go?” one user wrote. “My welcoming committee to Inwood [has] escaped!”
Castro reassured residents that the animals hadn’t permanently flown the coop.
“They should be back in about two weeks,” he said. “We’re not going to make you guys suffer too much.”
Donald Barron, 44, who works across the street from the grocery store at Broadyke Meat Market, said the animals have become a beacon in Inwood.
“It’s a landmark actually,” he said. “If someone is trying to find a place in the neighborhood, I just tell them, ‘Look for the big cow.’”
Barron was happy to hear that the animals would return soon.
“I look out of the window here every day and I do look at them,” he said. “If they were gone forever, I’d miss them.”