Mary Miner was a proverbial crazy cat lady who lived with about 50 cats in a small, dingy room on Hamilton Street. The room was one of many in a ramshackle tenement called The Ship, a building on the Lower East Side with an interesting history dating back to the 1700s.
Archive for the ‘Cat Stories’ Category
1886: The Cat Farm at “The Ship” on NYC’s Hamilton Street
Posted: 30th November 2023 by The Hatching Cat in Cat StoriesTags: Cats of Old New York, Crazy Cat Lady, Hamilton Street, Jacob Riis, Knickerbocker Village, NYC History
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New Cats in Hats: Mister Meyer, the Milk Steward of the S.S. President Harding
Posted: 21st November 2023 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Cats in HatsTags: Cats With Jobs, S.S. President Harding, Ship cats
I have added a new story to my Cats in Hats page. This one is about a cat who worked as a milk steward on the passenger ship S.S. President Harding, which sailed from New York to Germany in the 1920s.
Announcing New Content: Cats in Hats, Old-Time Cats on the Clock
Posted: 17th November 2023 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Cats in the MewsTags: cats in history, Cats With Jobs, Historical Cats, Working Cats
As I find myself in a restrictive cast for a few weeks following ankle surgery, I have decided to distract myself from my foot by adding new content to the Hatching Cat. I was originally going to save this “Cats in Hats” project for my retirement years, but writing about old-time cats on the clock […]
241 Bowery: The Photo-Bombing Flophouse Cat of the Sunshine Hotel
Posted: 21st October 2023 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Horse TalesTags: 241 Bowery, Cats of New York, New York and Harlem Railroad, NYC History, Sultan Divan, Sunshine Hotel, The Bowery
The cat of the Sunshine Hotel is not a cat of Old New York. But the building where this resident mouser made his home in the 1990s, 241 Bowery, has an interesting history dating back to the 1830s with ties to much larger animals and old-time Bowery characters with names like Beefsteak John and Chick Tricker.
1925: Spark Plug, the Feisty Feline of Brooklyn’s Stagg Street Police Station
Posted: 28th September 2023 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Mascots, Cat StoriesTags: Abraham Meserole, Cats of Old New York, NYPD history, police cats, Stagg Street, Williamsburg Houses
When the police began incarcerating stray cats in the jail cells at the Stagg Street station, their mascot cat was none too pleased to share his home with the mongrel intruders. He was willing to put up a good fight to preserve his domain.
