Posts Tagged ‘Cats of Old New York’

An unnamed, heroic stray cat and a mischievous mouse played a prominent role in a fire that forced a dozen families from the double brick apartment at 561 49th Street (present-day Sunset Park neighborhood) on December 4, 1908.

Two days after the new Hook and Ladder Company No. 10 of the Brooklyn Fire Department went into service, a new member was added to the roster: a small cat “who wore a fur coat which in color resembled a tortoise shell.”

In March 1916, the Richmond Hill Police precinct, which covered all of Richmond Hill, Woodhaven, Morris Park, and part of Forest Hills, was designated a mounted precinct. That is, every mounted police officer throughout Queens was transferred to the 283rd Precinct in Richmond Hill.

With more horses came more stables — and more vermin. What the Richmond Hill Police needed was a good to mouser to handle all the rats and mice that shared the stables with the horses.

Hurry up! There is murder at Herriman Avenue, Jamaica. The telephone receiver is off the hook and I can hear terrible screams and groans. Send the police department down quick.”

That was the breathless message that Lieutenant Louis Keppel of the Jamaica police precinct received shortly after midnight exactly one hundred years ago, on July 31, 1921. The voice was coming from a frantic telephone operator.

The Winter Garden Theatre was home to the original Broadway production of Cats from 1982 until the production closed in 2000. But about 50 years before the creepy human cats appeared on stage, the theater was famous for its real cats. Cat mascots, that is.