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... Crazy 'cat men' of New York : How feline frenzy made headlines decades ago ...
Blackie halts traffic as she transports her five kittens, one by one, across Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan. Photograph: Harry Warnecke/NY Daily News via Getty Images
Thousands of feral cats were rounded up and gassed, ostensibly for “humanitarian reasons”. Poor children were
paid one nickel per catch, which meant scores of healthy pets also met their ends.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard, then America’s premier naval shipbuilder, was reeling from rat infestations in the late 1800s.
Thanks to some New Yorkers, however, many were saved from slaughter in acts of kindness which have been
documented by Peggy Gavan in a new book, The Cat Men of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendships in Old New York.
“Every police station, every firehouse, had a cat. You had hundreds of cats down at the post office,” she said.
“Most businesses, restaurants, hotels, had cats because they controlled the mice and the rats. Dogs don’t do that.”
Crewman on deck, with cats, 1898. Note man teasing cat with a mirror and sunlight. Photograph: George Grantham/NH 43211 Courtesy Naval History and Heritage Command.
08-09-2022, 09:39 AM
