1897: The Brooklyn Cat That Stopped Trolley Traffic on Fulton Street

Posted: 9th February 2020 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Cats in the Mews
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Cats in the Mews: February 9, 1897
Cat holds up trolley traffic, New York Sun, Feb 10, 1897
New York Sun, February 10, 1897

On this day in 1897, a black cat held up traffic on the trolley roads running through Fulton Street for about 15 minutes.

According to the New York Sun, somehow the cat had managed to get onto a flat wooden guard box that ran under the BMT’s Fulton Street elevated railroad tracks just above the trolley wires. The trapped feline attracted attention with his terrific yowls of terror every time a trolley car passed under him.

People who heard the cat’s cries for help protested against what appeared to ongoing torture for the cat.

This 1900 photograph of Fulton Street at the intersection of Joralemon Street and Boreum Place shows a trolley car rolling underneath the Fulton Street elevated train tracks. The cat in this story became trapped between the elevated tracks and the wires connecting to the trolley cars. New York Public Library Digital Collections
This 1900 photograph of Fulton Street at the intersection of Joralemon Street and Boreum Place shows a trolley car rolling underneath the Fulton Street elevated train tracks. The cat in this story became trapped between the elevated tracks and the wires connecting to the trolley cars. New York Public Library Digital Collections

Finally, the crowd was able to get a trolley to stop just under the place from where the howls were coming from. The motorman climbed to the top of the car and attempted to reach the cat by pawing around over the top of the guard box. By this time, a long line of trolley cars had become blocked, and a repair wagon was summoned by telephone.

When the repair man arrived, he put up a ladder and seized the cat “amid much excitement on the part of the cat” and cheering from the assembled multitude. As the Sun reported: “Just as the cantankerous and ungrateful beast in his arms stepped into the body of the repair wagon from the ladder, the cat scratched its way loose and made a mad break for home and freedom.”

Nobody knows where the cat went. The crowd dispersed, and the trolley cars started on in clanging procession.

Just another day in the life of a 19th-century Brooklyn cat.