On April 11, 1912, the RMS Carpathia departed from Chelsea Piers in New York City for Fiume (present-day Rijeka, Croatia), carrying about 740 passengers. The ship never reached its destination on this particular departure.

The Carpathia at Pier 54, Chelsea Piers
The Carpathia at Pier 54, Chelsea Piers

Just after midnight on April 15, 1912, Carpathia‘s wireless operator, Harold Cottam, received some messages from Cape Cod stating they had private traffic for the Titanic.

Cottam relayed the message to the Titanic. In response, he received a distress signal stating the ship had struck ice and was in need of immediate assistance.

After failing to get a response from some officers on the bridge, Cottam ran to the captain’s cabin to awake Captain Arthur Henry Rostron.

The captain immediately sprang into action and ordered the ship to turn around and travel full speed toward the troubled Titanic. Rostron later testified that the Titanic was 67 miles away and that it took the Carpathia—reaching maximum speeds up to 17.5 knots —three and a half hours to reach her.

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Ottawa Citizen, March 27, 1920

People often ask me how I find my stories. Most of my animal tales come from old newspaper articles followed by a lot of research. For this story set in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, there was also a large dose of coincidence.

While I was doing research for my last story about the mascot cat of P.S. 128 in Bensonhurst, I found some great vintage photos from the Bath Beach neighborhood of old New Utrecht that I put aside for future use. One of the photos was of the old Bath Beach Hotel (aka Bensonhurst Hotel or Hotel Bensonhurst), so I decided to do some research on this hotel. I found a very tiny news article about a fire and continued digging…

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 19, 1948

In the meantime, I’d been trying to find out if the Trump family had any pets while they were living in Queens. As luck would have it, on the very same day I started doing research on the Bath Beach Hotel, I typed in some keywords about Trump and dogs into my favorite newspaper archive website.

The result of this research is the following dog story of old Bath Beach, Brooklyn.

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Nelly Cat Van Pelt Manor
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 23, 1910

As I often explain, not all of the cat stories of Old New York that I share with my readers have fairy-tale endings. Of course I prefer to tell happy stories. But I also believe that the kitties that met tragic ends also deserve some attention. This story of Nellie, the classroom mouser of the Van Pelt Manor Grammar School in Brooklyn, is one such cat tale that I believe should have a tiny place in New York’s history.

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This is not Jerry of the Greenpoint Avenue police station, but I imagine he may have looked like this.

This is not Jerry of the Greenpoint Avenue police station, but I imagine he may have looked like this–especially with those sad eyes and stubby tail.

In Old New York, almost every police station had a least one canine mascot in addition to one or more feline mousers. Although the cats seemed to get most of the press in those days, every once and a while a story about a police station’s mascot dog would appear in the paper. Oftentimes, the news was not good.

According to the New York Sun (if you see it in The Sun, it’s so), in most cases, these dogs were “the outpouring of the city streets, speechless waifs, sprung from the unknown and carried by fate straight up the green-lighted steps and open doors of a precinct station house.”

Jerry, the small, otherwise nondescript police dog of the Greenpoint Avenue police station in Brooklyn, was such a dog.

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The Cat Men of Gotham is now available for pre-ordering.

The Cat Men of Gotham is now available at a 30% discount when you pre-order from RUP using the instructions below.

Happy Holidays everyone!

I just received some great mews from my publisher, Rutgers University Press. My new book, The Cat Men of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendships in Old New York, is now available for pre-ordering. The book is not scheduled for release until May, but if you order early, you’ll save $6 on the cost of the trade cloth (hardcover) book. Plus, there is no charge for shipping in the United States.

Here’s a summary of the book:

The nineteenth century was a rough time to be a stray cat in New York City. The city’s human residents dealt with feline overpopulation by gassing unwanted cats or tossing them in rivers. But a few lucky strays were found by a diverse array of men—including firemen, cops, athletes, and politicians—who rescued them from the streets and welcomed them into their homes and hearts.

This book tells the stories of these heroic cat men of Gotham and their beloved feline companions. Not only does it introduce us to some remarkable men, but we get to meet many extraordinary cats as well, from Chinese stowaways prowling the Chelsea Piers to the sole feline survivor of the USS Maine explosion.

Among the forty-two profiles, we find many feline Cinderella stories, as humble alley cats achieved renown as sports team mascots, artists’ muses, and even presidential pets. Sure to appeal to cat fanciers and history fans alike, The Cat Men of Gotham will give you a new appreciation for Old New York and the people and animals who made it their home. As it takes you on a journey through the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it will amuse and astound you with tales of powerful men and their pussycats.

Some of the stories are expanded versions of posts from The Hatching Cat, but there are also lots of new stories that I’ve never published before (and which I will never publish on this site), including the full story around the iconic photo of the cat man on the cover of the book.

How to Order the Cat Men of Gotham

In order to get the 30% discount, you must order the book directly from Rutgers University Press. Simply enter “Cat Men of Gotham” in the search, and then click on the little red shopping cart to place the order. Say “yes” to placing a back order, and then enter the code in the Promo box.

If you are interested in reviewing the book and doing a write-up on your own blog, newsletter, or other social media platform, you may be able to request a review copy, depending on the scope of the media. Please just let me know if you plan on reviewing the book so I can keep track and also inform the publicity department.

Thank you very much, and have a great Mew Year! Cat Men of Gotham discount