The presence of a cat at the studio had, by tradition, become considered a necessity to the students and was thought to be productive of good luck in their artistic work.–The New York Times, February 13, 1889
New York Times
In February 1889, it was not uncommon to see a group of young ladies walking up and down East 23rd Street and all through the Flatiron District — even on the coldest of winter days. The women, who attended classes at the Art Student League of New York, were on a mission. They had to find a good-luck mascot cat that would not disappear from the League’s building on East 23rd Street.
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
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.
I recently wrote about a cat that saved 150 lives in a building in Harlem in 1897. In this tale of Old New York, which took place when a gas leak endangered the lives of every resident in a four-story brick tenement building on East 75th Street, we meet two feline heroes and their canine sidekick. For those interested in history, this story also includes a brief history of Con Edison and New York City’s other gas companies.
The New York Sun, February 9, 1889
The building at 241 East 75th Street was owned by William Sartorius, who occupied the entire ground floor with his wife and two sons. Thirty-three other people lived in the building, each family occupying about 800 square feet of space. I’m sharing the following details to provide insight into tenement life, and also because many of my readers have discovered their ancestors in my stories.
*William May, a locksmith, leased three front rooms in the basement. He used one room for his workshop and lived in the other two rooms with his wife, their 17-year-old daughter, Mary, and two teenage sons. The family also had a black foxhound and two cats who slept in the sub-cellar.
*Frederick Souter, the janitor, occupied the three rear rooms in the basement with his wife and four children.
*The large families of John Weisner and Henry Heidler (2 parents and five children each) lived in the two 3-room apartments on the second floor.
*James Rogan, a 28-year-old tinsmith, lived in the rear rooms on the top floor with his wife, Mary, her sister, Alice, and three young children. Ernst Swingman and his wife occupied the front rooms. The third floor was vacant.
When William P. Davenport took in a stray cat that he found outside his second-floor apartment, he did not know that he had just made one of the best decisions of his life. Not only did the cat save his life, but it also saved the lives of about 150 other people living in the Hermione building at 80 East 116th Street in Harlem.
For those who know popular literature, you might say the stray cat of the Hermione building was a very special wizard. In fact, I think I’ll call him Harry.
According to the New York Tribune, William saw the strange cat in the hallway upon returning home from his night job at 3:30 in the morning. The cat purred and rubbed himself against William’s legs as he pet it. William could tell Harry was very friendly, and he didn’t have the heart to toss him outside. He brought the cat into his apartment and went to bed.
William had just started to fall asleep when he heard a loud howling noise coming from his front door. He endured the noise for a short while, and then decided to get up and let the noisy cat back into the hallway.
New York Sun, February 4, 1897
As he opened the door, he saw that the hall and stairwells were filled with smoke. Bright orange flames were running up the elevator shaft in the center of the hallway. With the door open, Harry the cat made a mad dash to escape.
William shouted to alert the tenants in the 27 other apartments, and then ran back inside to get his family. The Davenport family, including his wife, their infant child, a boarder, and a servant, were all able to make it safely down the smoke-filled stairway. Many of the other Hermione residents on the upper floors were forced to escape via the roof or fire escapes.
George Simms and his wife, who lived on the fourth floor, were two of the people forced to make their way to the roof. Mr. Simms and fifth-floor resident Allen D. Moor broke off a large section of slat flooring used to protect the tar roof, and made a bridge to cross the six-foot chasm over to the neighboring building.
The fire took place in the five-story Hermione building, on the southwest corner of Park Avenue and 116th Street in Harlem.
When the fire department arrived, the men had to rescue numerous people in various states of dress (and undress) who had crowded onto the fire escapes. The firemen soon had the fire under control, although not before it had caused about $15,000 in damage. An investigation determined that the fire had originated in a basement storeroom.
Everyone who lived in the building agreed they all would have been smothered or burned in bed had it not been for the stray cat. The day after the fire, William headed up a neighborhood hunt to find Harry. The plan was to adopt the cat as the building’s mascot as soon as it was found.
Residents trapped on the roof of the Hermione building created a bridge from some wood slats to cross over to the adjoining building on East 116th Street.
The Hermione Building on Park Avenue
The Hermione–advertised as the most beautiful apartment in Harlem–was constructed sometime around 1891. This advertisement appeared in the New York World that year.
Here’s another ad from the New York World in 1893. Note that the ad states the Hermione building was fire-proof.
The Hermione (bottom right), 1897 Bromley map. New York Public Library Digital Collection.
The Hermione was constructed near the Old Harlem Road on what had once been a large farm owned by Sampson (Samuel) Adolphus Benson. Benson, who owned the parcel until 1826, was the grandson of Samson Benson, who in turn was the great-grandson of Captain Johannes Benson, who settled in Nieuw Haarlem in 1696. For almost 200 years, the heirs of Johannes Benson were among the largest landowners in Harlem. From the Randal Farm Map, 1820. This illustration shows Park Avenue between 115th and 116th Streets as it appeared in 1864. The Hermione building was constructed right along the rounded curve of the fence — perhaps our hero cat was a descendant of a barn cat on the old Benson farm? Museum of the City of New York Collections
Sergeant John McDermott, better known as Red McDermott, could not wait to sink his teeth into the sirloin steak dinner sitting on his desk. But first, he had to deal with some important police matters that Inspector Cross had brought to his attention. Peter the police cat saw his lucky break…
According to The New York Times, the doorman for the Eldridge Street police station had just delivered the savory steak smothered in onions to the sergeant’s office. He placed the take-out tray on the desk and returned to his other duties.
At this very moment, Inspector Adam A. Cross walked into the station and immediately began asking questions. A moment later, a patrolman walked in with a disorderly, inebriated prisoner. Sergeant McDermott had no other choice but to delay his supper while he dealt with the inspector and the prisoner.
As the sergeant assisted with the prisoner, Inspector Cross leaned back in his chair to get a better view inside McDermott’s office. He was very surprised to be a first-hand witness to a cat-burglary in progress!
There was Peter, the station’s police cat, pushing off the tin cover from the tray and using his nose to nudge the onions off the steak. And there was Yaller, the station’s police dog, standing on his hind legs at a respectful distance, licking his chops and whining for a share of the stolen meal. Peter growled in response and continued devouring the steak.
The Eldridge Street station house was located in this four-story dark brick building at 105-107 Eldridge Street. Today there is commercial space on the ground floor and 20 apartments on the top floors.
Greatly amused, the inspector decided to allow the crime to continue while he distracted Sergeant McDermott with animated conversation concerning the weather, the depth of the snowfall, and numerous other irrelevant questions. Ravenously hungry and annoyed at the nonsense banter, McDermott again had no other choice but to listen patiently to his superior officer.
Finally, the inspector rose from his chair. Buttoning his coat, he walked over to the door and called back, “Red, when you get Peter thoroughly trained, I’d like to enter him in the next beef-eating contest.”
McDermott dashed into his room, where he found the police cat licking the empty tray and poor Yaller still licking his empty chops. The doorman brought the sergeant another steak dinner, and sent Peter out into the cold for a while to pay for his crime.
