The Turtle Lady thrives in Williamsburg
Sara is standing outside her Williamsburg apartment building holding up her 20-year-old “little boy,” Abe. A Hasidic man does a double take driving by as does the cop cruising behind him. Bikers circle back around the block and schoolgirls giggle and point at the big yellow-footed tortoise paddling his legs through the air. Sara smiles, amused, at their reactions to her family member. She keeps around 60 more turtles as roommates in her compact quarters upstairs along with a chicken named Penny, two mourning doves, three goldfish and three cats, all of whom seem to coexist with a rather unusual degree of peace between species.