The following cat tale of the Lower East Side is dedicated to my cat Romeow, who passed away after 16 years of life on July 21, 2014. On June 15, 1904, the General Slocum caught fire and sank in the East River. An estimated 1,021 of the 1,342 people on board the side-wheel passenger boat […]
Archive for the ‘Cat Stories’ Category
1904 and 1908: Holey and Gittel, the Cats with 10 Lives on the Lower East Side
Posted: 25th July 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Cats in the MewsTags: 163 East 4th Street, Cat Stories, dumbbell tenement, Lower East Side, New York History, Phillip Minthorne, Rose Kolb, SPCA
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1893: The Crazy New York Cat Ladies and the Murderous Midnight Band of Mercy, Part II
Posted: 2nd July 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Crazy Cat LadiesTags: Caroline Ewen, Cat Stories, crazy cat ladies, Grace Devide, Nellie Bly, New York History, Sarah J. Edwards
Part II: The Midnight Band of Mercy “I suppose I am mad. For a woman to care nothing for her appearance or how she lives is a sure sign of madness. I have nothing in common with anything except animals, and them I love.”—Grace Georgia Devide, The New York World, December 31, 1893 “The Midnight […]
1890: The Crazy Cat Ladies and The Murderous Midnight Band of Mercy, Part I
Posted: 1st July 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Crazy Cat LadiesTags: Barney Bowers, Cat Stories, Crazy Cat Lady, Grace Devide, New York History, Sarah J. Edwards, Washington Heights
Part I: The Society to Befriend Domestic Animals Like all crazy cat ladies or cat hoarders, Mrs. Sarah J. Edwards and Mrs. Grace Georgia Devide had good intentions when they opened a refuge for homeless cats in 1890. But something went terribly wrong, and a mission to provide shelter and food for friendless and maltreated […]
1916: Wang, the King of the Pirate Cats of West 80th Street
Posted: 22nd June 2014 by The Hatching Cat in Cat StoriesTags: Cat Stories, Hotel Majestic, John Pamaris, New York History, polio epidemic of 1916, SPCA, Thomas F. Freel
Wang was the leader of a pack of up to 100 stray cats that haunted West 80th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues during the brutal spring and summer of 1916. The press called them the pirate cats.
1922: A Christmas Feast for Woo-Ki and the Pirate Cats of Chelsea Piers
Posted: 17th December 2013 by The Hatching Cat in Cat Stories, Christmas Cat TalesTags: Cat Stories, Chelsea Piers, Chelsea Pirate Cats, New York History, pirate cats, RMS Olympic, Sam Meders
During World War I and World War II, hundreds of cats from all over the world were left stranded on the Chelsea Piers in New York when the troopships they had stowed away on left the harbor without them. The news media called them the “Chelsea Pirate Cats.”
