The Hatching Cat of Gotham

In 1936, a rather disheveled kitten about seven months old stepped into the lobby of New York City’s Algonquin Hotel on 44th Street. Like most stray cats, he was fighting for survival on the streets, and a hotel lobby was as good a place as any to search (or beg) for food and shelter.

Frank Case, the legendary owner of the Algonquin, welcomed this feline hotel guest, even though he was just a ragamuffin street cat. Somehow he knew there was something special about this orange cat with the perfect tabby markings. Plus, the hotel needed a new cat to replace Billy, who had arrived at the Algonquin around 1921 and had lived there happily for 15 years.

Frank Case named the cat Rusty, and well, as they say, the rest is history.

Almost 80 years later, the iconic 12-story hotel at 59-63 West 44th Street still has a resident cat. In fact, in all these years, the Algonquin has never been without a feline host or hostess to great the guests. All but one of the Algonquin cats have been rescues.

Matilda III is the current cat of the house. She took over when Matilda II retired at the age of 15 and moved to a staff member’s home in December 2010. A beautiful ragdoll cat (although she sometimes reminds me of Grumpy Cat), Matilda III was rescued after being abandoned in a box outside the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, New York.

The Legend of Rusty

Rusty, the Algonquin’s “snooty cat…ignores more celebrities than the Social Register…it’s whispered around by those who claim to know that he really runs the place.”– Dorothy Kilgallen, the “Voice of Broadway”

There’s not a lot of information about Billy — Frank Case gives him a cameo appearance in his book, Do Not Disturb — but Rusty often made the New York press headlines.

Over the years, Rusty grew into a very distinguished cat, weighing 18 pounds at his prime. He was a favorite among the actors and artists and writers that frequented the hotel, and he especially loved new guests.

Rusty would greet and nudge each new guest warmly and incorrigibly – he’d often have to be pushed off the register to they could sign it (what is it with cats and newspapers and books?).

Rusty had a daily routine, which began every morning in the 10th-floor suite occupied by Frank and Bertha Case. Here, Bertha would prepare him for the hotel guests by grooming him. Rusty loved this ritual, and would run to Bertha as soon as he saw the brush in her hands.

Once presentable, Rusty would take the elevator downstairs to assist the Algonquin staff. For Rusty’s convenience, a little swinging door between the lobby and the kitchen was installed so he could help with the kitchen staff.

However, he spent much of the day in the Blue Bar with Louie the bar waiter, where he had a special stool reserved just for him. He’d show up for duty around 11 a.m. when guests began arriving, and keep guard until around 3 p.m. when the lunch crowd thinned out.

When he finally had the bar and Louie to himself, Rusty would drum his front paws on the counter to demand his daily shot of milk. Sometimes Louie would whistle songs and Rusty would sort of sway to the music as if dancing.

Then promptly at 4 p.m. he’d jump off his stool and get back on the elevator in the lobby with his guardian, Mrs. Germaine Legrand, the Case family’s housekeeper (he always took the passenger elevator, never the service elevator!).

Back in the Case suite, Rusty would get a snifter of milk in a champagne glass and then take an afternoon cat nap. At 7:30 p.m., he’d appear at the bar again for his next tour of duty, and then head back upstairs for the night at 10 p.m.

 

Summers at Southampton

Summers were extra special for Rusty, because he got to take a break from the big city and spend weekends at the Case family’s summer home, Shore Acre Farm, on Actors Colony Road in the village of North Haven (Southampton), Long Island.

Frank Case purchased the waterfront summer home in June 1919 from Mrs. Lilian Backus, the widow of Eben Y. Backus, who was the stage manager for the Empire Theatre on 42nd Street.

The home was located in a cottage colony of actors (hence the street name) and many famous thespians who also lived or vacationed at the colony, including Douglass Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, would often visit the family and their cat Rusty.

Rusty Dies of a Broken Heart

On February 21, 1946, five years after Rusty won a long battle with pneumonia, Bertha Case succumbed to a year-long illness and died in the Case’s hotel suite. Four months later, on June 7, Frank Case died in the hotel.

Following his death, Frank’s body was laid in state in the suite. John Martin, manager of the hotel, held Rusty in his arms and let him take a last look at his master. Martin told the press that as he held him, a shudder appeared to go through the cat’s body. He also uttered a strange cry.

For several days, Rusty refused to eat or roam the premises. He no longer visited John Martin on Sundays, as he had done for years. John took him to the Speyer Hospital for Animals, where the depressed cat was diagnosed with jaundice complicated by leukemia.

Less than two weeks after Frank’s death, John found Rusty in the suite, curled beside the bed of his old master. The jaundice and feline leukemia were no doubt the cause of his death, but those who knew him, like Mrs. Legrand, said he simply died of a broken heart.

“Rusty was sick from missing the two people he loved best,” Mrs. Legrand told The New York Sun. “Always he was looking at the door as if he wondered why they didn’t come.”

According to the East Hampton Star (August 15, 1946), Rusty was buried in the place he spent many a summer day with the Case family and their famous theater friends — in the Case garden at their summer home in Southampton.

Since Rusty’s passing, 10 cats have been king or queen of the Algonquin Hotel. Although most of the cats had full run of the place, that changed in 2011 with a directive from the New York City Department of Health, which required the hotel cat to remain in areas where food is not prepared or served.

I guess this 21st-century directive means there is no longer a special stool at the bar reserved just for the hotel’s feline and no longer a kitty door to the kitchen. Although he didn’t have a Twitter account, a Facebook page, or an email address, Rusty had it pretty good in those simpler, rule-free days.