Rin Tin Tin, born in 1918, was one of the most celebrated animals in film history. He died in 1932.
In true movie-star fashion, Beauty, a police dog and half-brother of canine star Rin Tin Tin, came to the rescue of several Angora kittens when a pet shop at 735 Lexington Avenue caught fire on November 30, 1926.
The fire in the pet shop, owned by former lion tamer Captain Joseph Hamlisch, was first discovered by a young girl who noticed smoke coming from the basement windows. She notified Policeman Esposito at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street, who sent in a general fire alarm and ran toward the shop.
At the time of the fire, Frank Semon, a salesman in the pet shop, was in the store with about 300 canaries, numerous fish, and about 350 various animals, including dogs, cats, monkeys, and ferrets. When Esposito ran into the shop, he found Semon in the rear of the store, dazed and searching for the source of the fire. Esposito brought the salesman outside to the street.
As Semon waited on the sidewalk for the fire department to arrive, Beauty came running out of the building and leaped onto him. The dog barked and tugged at Semon’s jacket to get his attention. When Semon looked into the window, he saw five Angora kittens throwing themselves against the glass in attempts to escape the smoke-filled store.
Beauty with Blanche Kropacek in 1926.
Semon ran into the store and rescued the kittens in the shop window. When he brought them outside, a crowd of people cheered.
On a second trip into the store, Semon carried out a monkey named Jimmy, who thanked his rescuer by biting him. Although exhausted and nearly overcome by the smoke, Semon made three more trips, saving ten cats, four ferrets, a parrot, five puppies, 15 canaries, and six dogs, including a mother Pekinese dog. Unable to make any more trips, he collapsed on the sidewalk from smoke and exhaustion.
Fourteen firemen were overcome by smoke in the fire, which reportedly started in a rubbish heap in the basement. Sadly, most of the pet shop animals perished, including 300 canaries, four parrots, three monkeys, four ferrets, six dogs, and four Angora cats. All of the fish survived.
Captain Hamlisch’s pet shop was located in this building on Lexington Avenue at 59th Street. NYC Department of Records, 1940.
Captain Joseph Hamlisch
Born in Vienna in 1870, Captain Hamlisch, the owner of the pet shop on Lexington Avenue, called himself a trainer of wild animals. After serving in the Austrian Navy and Army, he became a lion tamer, working primarily with lions at venues such as the Hippodrome at Luna Park. (He also sold lions at his pet shop–in 1922, he ran an ad for two performing lions that he was selling from his shop for $1500).
Hamlisch was also an expert at hunting — his claim to fame was serving as a hunting partner of President Theodore Roosevelt in Africa (he had a medal that was presented to him by the president to prove it) and explorer Carl Akeley in the Belgian Congo.
Following a long illness, the captain died in his home at 509 East 77th Street in 1943 at the age of 73. He reportedly continued running his pet shop and an animal ambulance service until he took ill.
Captain Joseph Hamlisch in 1927 with his animal ambulance.
Mary Miner (aka Mary the Cat) was a proverbial crazy cat lady who had more cats than she could accommodate and care for. Like Rosalie Goodman, who also hoarded cats in the late 19th century, Mary lived in an ancient, dilapidated tenement house on the Lower East Side. The tenement, on Hamilton Street, was called The Ship.
Described by one reporter as “an old hag” who spent her days begging and going through ash cans looking for edible tidbits for her dozens of cats, Mary got in trouble one December day in 1886. She reportedly accosted several men on Cherry Street and, unbeknown to her neighbors or her cats, was sentenced by Judge Duffy to Blackwell’s Island for three months.
With their sole caretaker gone, the 50 or so cats that shared “a mean little dingy room” in the rear of 43 Hamilton Street with Mary and thousands of roaches became savage as they struggled to survive. Hearing their howls, neighbors could only peak through a “grimy window” to see what was going on inside the room. Unable to open the locked door, they called the police for help.
When Policeman Cullen of the Oak Street police station arrived, he found about 40 cats in the tiny, 10-foot-square room. Several of the cats were dead, including one wrapped in newspaper inside a closet and one that had been stuffed and mounted on a board. There was a large dish of chopped meat on the floor, and an old table served as a scratching post. Two “rank pillows” that had served as Mary’s bed were also on the floor.
When the neighbors learned that the cats of Mary’s cat farm were going to be evicted by the police, they gathered along Hamilton Street to watch the event. Policeman Cullen flung a wad of burning paper toward a dirty stove in order to frighten the cats and then used a stick to try to lure them out.
At first, the cats refused to budge and put up quite a fight. Some of them walked out the door, only to crawl back inside through the window. As the cats ran into the street, some of the women recognized their own lost cats, which Mary had apparently catnapped.
Hamilton Street and Monroe Street at Market Street, 1932. NYPL Digital Collections
Once all the cats were out, the window was barricaded. The cats continued to attempt to get back into the room as a man cleaned and disinfected it the next day. The press did not report on the fate of Mary Miner or her dozens of cats.
A Brief History of The Ship on Hamilton Street
The front of The Ship, 1896Rear view of The Ship, 1896
Hamilton Street no longer exists, but it was once a small block that ran parallel to Monroe Street between Catherine and Market Streets. As one newspaper described it: The street was just one block long, and had a crick where its original tracer, whether human or bovine, for it may well have been a cow path, turned aside for a hillock or a stump.
The old street was originally called Cheapside Street, and it ran through what had been the 56-acre farm of Harmanus Rutgers, who had purchased the land in 1728. In May 1827, the Common Council passed a resolution to change the name from Cheapside to Hamilton (Mr. David T. Valentine wanted to call it Jackson Street, but the original motion was carried.)
Map of the Rutgers Farm, NYPL Digital Collections
The Ship, comprising two buildings and seven houses numbered 41, 43, 45, and 47 Hamilton Street and 38, 40, and 40 1/2 Monroe Street, was on the northern end of Hamilton Street. There are no records of when any of the buildings were constructed, but it does appear that at least one goes back to the late 18th century.
During the late 18th century, Hendrick Rutgers may have used the original building, #41, as a taproom (he made beer on the property). He sold the building to Charles and Isaac Wright, the latter a blacksmith. In 1817, Edward A. Le Breton began operating a brewery at what was then 45 Cheapside Avenue.
In the 1850s, #41 was a sailor’s boarding house (perhaps why the building was called The Ship). The cellar of #41 and #43 was also used to store whisky and other ales at this time. At some point, probably around the 1860s, the buildings were converted for tenement use.
In the 1890s, around the time this story of the cats took place, there were 16 rooms (called cabins) in that section of the The Ship numbered 41 and 43; the largest of the apartments had only two rooms.
The Ship was a two-story building with a brickwork exterior and timber framework, peaked roofs, and alternating doors and small windows.
Every rented room had its own exterior door and a small wooden stoop. An extra door in the center led to a narrow hall, which reportedly reminded one of “the steerage of an old-fashioned emigrant ship.”
Leading from what could be called the main deck (ground floor) were various narrow hallways that ended in a cellar “as dark and damp as ever was the bilge bottom of any old hulk afloat.” Residents called it “the hold” of the ship.
In 1886, Mary Miner was reportedly paying $2 a month for her hovel in this odd, dilapidated building.
This photograph of the interior courtyard of The Ship, which was taken by Jacob Riis in 1896, shows a woman looking down into “the hold” of the building. Little children could easily fall into the hold, which led to one resident tying a rope around her child when he played on the wooden stoop (in a news article about this woman, the child did fall and was hanging by the rope when a reporter came to visit). Museum of the City of New York Digital Collections
For many years, rumors spread that the city was going to condemn the building and evict the tenants. Following a visit in December 1895 by Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt and Jacob Riis, a journalist with the Evening Sun newspaper, the case for condemnation was taken more seriously. The Health Department condemned the building in March 1897.
New York Sun, May 3, 1903
Sometime around 1900, a large tenement building was constructed on the site of the old Ship. At this time, the crime-ridden neighborhood was known as the Gap, which, needless to say, did not have a good reputation. (The block also accounted for 291 cases of tuberculosis from 1894 to 1904.)
In 1932 the City sold Hamilton Street to Fred F. French Operators, Inc., the developers of Knickerbocker Village. Governor Alfred E. Smith broke ground for what would be one of the city’s largest slum-clearance housing developments on October 11, 1932.
The new housing development would embrace two blocks bounded by Monroe, Catherine, Cherry, and Market Streets. Most of Hamilton Street was obliterated, save for one small section that is today the site of the Coleman Playground.
Construction of Knickerbocker Village, 1934. NYPL Digital Collections
Knickerbocker Village, New York City. Google Earth
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. Click here to read this new working cat tale.
These vintage kitties are napping after a hard day of working in the shoe factory.
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 has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, so no time like the present.
The stories on the Cats in Hats page will be short tales about cats across America and around the world who were on the clock during the late 1800s and early 1900s. That is to say, these cats had “jobs” and wore various hats as mousers and mascots for ships, restaurants, government buildings, police stations, etc. Unlike my Hatching Cat animal tales of Old new York, these cats on the clock tales will be short and sweet, with limited historical content.
My first Cats in Hats story is about a Chicago post office cat that survived the great fire of 1871. As I continue to come across stories like this one, I’ll post them on this page. So check in from time to time to see new stories as I post them (click on the “Cats in Hats” link at the top right of this page.) I’ll also announced new stories with my regular Hatching Cat blog posts.
Maybe one day I’ll have enough tales about historical cats on the clock to create a book…
In December 1910, the New York Times ran a large article about a dog who could speak and form sentences up to four words long. The talking dog, described as a “splendid specimen of the German hunting dog” with velvety dark brown fur and beautiful eyes “sometimes almost human in their expression,” lived in a small village in Germany with a game warden named Herman Ebers.
The dog, who had a very Germanic name–Don (ha ha)–spoke in German.
After news of the talking dog spread in the village of Theerhutte and throughout Germany, Ebers began receiving extraordinary offers of up to $15,000 for Don. Ebers, who made only $150 a year as a game warden, decided to hold out for a large metropolitan music hall to bid on his talented dog.
Don, who reporters claimed was either a setter or a pointer, was born in 1905. According to the Times, his power of speech was discovered six months after his birth. The revelation came while the Ebers family was having dinner. When someone asked him, “Willst du wohl was haben? (Do you want something?), Don answered, “Haben!” (Want!).
With only three weeks of training, mostly encouraged by Ebers’ daughter, Martha, Don was able to say three words: kuchen (cake), haben, and hunger. Soon thereafter, he learned how to say “ja” and “nein” (yes and no). He also learned one Russian word: ruble. Martha told the press, “his education is not a matter of force but of his own free choice.”
Don the talking dog
According to those who heard him, Don was not merely articulating his barking and growling; they could clearly hear “the deep breast tones” that were “unmistakably human in timbre and inflection.”
In 1912, William Hammerstein, the son of New York theater magnate Oscar Hammerstein, set out to get Don. According to reports, he was convinced the talking dog was “a real necessity as an attraction” for his hotel’s summer program.
William’s father helped him out by posting a $50,000 bond for the dog. The bond would be paid in the event the dog died on his way to or from America (or from any fatal accident while in America); apparently Lloyds of London refused to insure the dog’s passage and life.
Ebers accepted the offer and turned the dog over to Martha, who would take charge of the dog on his inaugural American vaudeville tour. Martha had recently married Herr Karl J. Haberland, so they combined their honeymoon with the American visit and tour.
Don the talking dog was just one of many animal acts that performed at Hammerstein’s in the 1900s.
Don the talking dog and the Haberlands arrived in America on July 9, 1912, aboard the German steamship SS Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm (they traveled first class because they did not think Don would be safe in the ordinary quarters for dogs). The poor dog was reportedly seasick during the entire trip, and when he reached New York, he refused to be interviewed at the pier. (Perhaps because he didn’t understand English.)
A few weeks later, the German canine made his debut at Hammerstein’s Paradise Roof Garden atop the Victoria Theatre on West 42nd Street. The master of ceremonies who introduced the dog to the audience was Loney Haskell, who also served as an interpreter for the audience.
New-York Tribune, August 11, 1912
Don was very nervous at first, and in fact he refused to go on stage until all the windows of the rooftop theater were closed. He didn’t get the greatest reviews–one Variety reporter wrote, “The trained growls which emanate from his throat can readily be mistaken for words”–but the audience was enthusiastic about his novel act.
By the way, one of the other headliners at Hammerstein’s theater that summer was Harry Houdini.
Don stayed in America for a about six months, performing at various New York City stages (he preferred the indoor theaters, as he disliked the sounds of traffic on the rooftop gardens). He stayed in New York for eight weeks before touring other American cities.
During his time in this country, Don began to earn rave reviews. One reporter for the Brooklyn Citizen noted that while he was not a “bench show idol, he has more gray matter than many human beings and is the recipient of much applause.”
Don Saves a Drowning Man at Brighton Beach
In 1913, Don the talking dog returned to New York, where he performed at Hammerstein’s Olympia Theater Music Hall on Broadway in Times Square. He then spent a few months doing the vaudeville circuit in Coney Island.
In the summer of 1913, Don and the Haberlands stayed at the Hotel Shelburne at Brighton Beach. On the evening of August 27, Don was frolicking on the beach near the hotel when John Condrica, a waiter at the hotel, began waving his hands as he struggled to stay above water.
The News Tribune, August 1913
Don yelled “Help!” three times as loud as he could, and then ran into the water and swam to the drowning man. According to reports, Condrica pulled the dog underwater in his panic, but Don was able to grab the man’s bathing suit and pull him about 150 feet back toward the shore. (As one astute reporter observed, while this daring rescue was happening, Martha was reportedly thanking her lucky stars that the dog was insured for $50,000.)
Mounted Policeman Edward F. Cody of the Coney Island precinct, who, according to The Sun, “understands German when spoken by a dog,” made a daring leap off the embankment on his horse, Ruler, and charged into the water (Cody did not know how to swim but the horse apparently did).
Holding onto the reigns with his right hand, he grabbed Condrica with his left hand and held the man’s head above water. Three lifeguards from the Parkway baths–Benjamin Hilton, Albert Skene, and Ralph Behring–took out a boat and aided in the rescue. It would not be the first or last time Cody made such a water rescue with his horse.
Don the talking dog died in Dresden, Germany, on November 15, 1915, at the age of 12. Newspapers across the country reported on his death.
A Brief History of the Hotel Shelburne
The Hotel Shelburne at Sea Breeze Avenue and Ocean Parkway
The Hotel Shelburne, where Don the talking dog was staying with his master in the summer of 1913, was a grand hotel in Brighton Beach, bounded by Ocean Parkway, West Brighton Beach Avenue, West 1st Street, and Sea Breeze Avenue. Today, this land is occupied by the Shelbourne Towers–originally known as the Shelburne Apartments (which used the correct spelling when they were built in 1932).
This property once belonged to John Y. McKane, a colorful figure, to say the least, in the history of Coney Island.
The property of John Y. McCane, including the land where the Hotel Shelburne would be constructed (red X), is shown on this 1890 map. “The Gut” neighborhood of wood shanties and cottages is on the left. NYPL Digital Collections
Born in County Antrim, Ireland, on August 10, 1841, John McKane moved to Gravesend, Brooklyn, with his family when he was two years old. He trained in carpentry and started working as a carpenter and builder in the Sheepshead Bay area in 1866.
A few years later, McKane was elected constable of Gravesend. It would be his first of several elected positions that would eventually earn him the title of Brooklyn’s Boss Tweed.
Over his years in office, which included a self-appointed stint as chief of the Coney Island police department, he gained notoriety through a series of shady land deals that gave him enormous political power in city, state, and federal elections. Basically, he named himself Commissioner of Common Lands, which gave him control over all construction in what was called West Brighton.
In 1879, when this map was drawn, Brighton Beach was still mostly undeveloped–even the Brighton Beach Race Course had not yet been constructed. Development would pick up a few years later as McKane began taking over common lands and workers at the race track began moving to the area and establishing homes.
McKane’s power allowed him to intimidate voters and interfere with election monitors who were responsible for ensuring honest elections.
His corruption seemed to have no bounds, and he earned thousands of dollars by collecting “licensing fees” from the dance and music halls, saloons, seedy hotels, and other establishments that he helped develop in West Brighton.
During this era, West Brighton was referred to as “Sodom of the Sea.” One of the worst areas was a community of mostly Black and some Italian residents known as the Gut, bounded by West First and West Fifth Streets, Sea Breeze Avenue, and Neptune Avenue (see the map above). Here, one could find numerous wood shanties and cottages along with beer and dance halls, dive hotels, and brothels.
The Gut comprised numerous small wooden sheds and ramshackle cottages. Many of the residents shared these homes with horses, cows, chickens, ducks, and geese. Brooklyn Citizen, January 30, 1898
After creating his own police force in 1881, McKane and his men began raiding the Gut, sometimes taking prisoners and sometimes chasing law-breaking residents off the island. Many of the residents began to tame down in fear of McKane’s wrath, but it really wasn’t until streets were cut through the Gut around 1901 that the neighborhood began to improve.
Although McKane was often charged with various crimes, he always escaped prosecution: too many men owed him favors and too many were afraid of his power to bring them to their knees. But in 1893, he went a bit too far, rigging an election to prevent another candidate from defeating him (he refused to hand over the fake voting tallies to the Brooklyn Supreme Court).
Gravesend Town Supervisor and Sunday school teacher John Y. McKane
Faced with charges of election fraud, contempt of court, and other charges, he was indicted and sentenced to six years of hard labor at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
According to reports, McKane was arrogant and narcissistic enough to think he would somehow elude imprisonment. Some rumors even spread that some of his Coney Island political henchmen were going to raid the jail and help him escape to Cuba.
Oh well, that didn’t happen, and off to prison he went. Not only was his spirit crushed, but he spent his last years on Earth as a lonely old man: One report said he refused to allow anyone—including his own wife and children—to visit him because he was too vain to let them see him wearing prison garb.
McKane was released two years early for good behavior in 1898, but he suffered a stroke in August 1899. That didn’t kill him, but a second stroke a month later did.
Speaking of history possibly repeating itself, let me get back to the Hotel Shelburne, which was constructed in 1904 on McKane’s land (his widow, Fanny, now owned the property), adjacent to what had been the Gut neighborhood…
The hotel was originally called the New Concourse Park Hotel, in honor of the new Concourse Park across the street on Surf Avenue (where Asser Levy Park is today.) Designed by architect Abraham D. Hinsdale, the large, three-story, wood framed hotel opened in June 1914, just three months after excavation had begun. It was the first grand hotel to be constructed at Coney Island in more than 20 years.
The New Concourse Park Hotel, 1904. NYPL Digital Collections
The 150-room hotel had numerous amenities, including a large shed on the property to house horses and up to 300 automobiles (there was also an automobile repair shop—an automobilist lived nearby, and he would run to the hotel if someone needed help). The roof had two Japanese gardens, and the basement had a Turkish bath, swimming pool, gymnasium, billiard room, bowling alley, massage room, and wine cellar.
Concourse Park and Surf Avenue, 1900s. The hotel is near the top left.
Concourse Park, Surf Avenue. It looks like the hotel was pink?
During its first year of operation, the hotel was run on an elaborate plan that cut into all the profits. The hotel was sold at auction in February 1905, and the name was changed to the Hotel Riccadonna in June 1906. The hotel was named in honor of Abele Riccadonna, an Italian immigrant who made a name for himself as a caterer and restaurateur. Abele died in 1902, but not before ensuring that a Coney Island hotel would one day have his name.
A bird’s-eye view of Coney Island and Brighton Beach in 1906. The location of the hotel is marked by the red arrow.
Abele Riccadonna’s wish didn’t last very long. In 1911, the hotel changed hands again, and this time it was renamed the Hotel Jefferson. A year later, the owners of the Jefferson filed for bankruptcy, following a fire in April 1912 that caused about $40,000 worth of damage.
John Reissenweber, a brewer, purchased the hotel and named it the Shelburne. He and his son-in-law, Louis Fisher, enjoyed many years of success, especially with their revues, which were taken from the best shows on Broadway (like Don the talking dog).
The Hotel Jefferson is noted on this map. NYPL Digital Collections
One more time, in 1928, the hotel would be sold at a foreclosure sale; demolition began in May. A year later, the site was occupied by three miniature golf courses (called miniature links). Apparently, miniature golf was the pickleball of the late 1920s and 1930s.
The demolition completed the demise of Coney’s Island “Big Four”: the Oriental, the Manhattan Beach, and the Brighton Beach hotels had already been lost to progress. In 1932, the Shelburne Apartments were erected on the site, bringing an end to the hotel’s history.
