Posts Tagged ‘New York City History’

Leonidas Arniotis had about three dozen trained circus dogs and cats that performed in New York City and other cities throughout America in the late 1890s.

In 1904, an East Village man was charged with disorderly conduct for serving catnip powder to cats, causing them to become intoxicated in public.

Alberto Gaston de Bassini, aka the Chevalier, was a man who truly loved and cared about cats. He fed them, bathed them, and sang to them, and named them after heroes and heroines from famous operas.

In January 1901, the janitress for the tenement at 141 Saint Ann’s Avenue in the Bronx opened her heart and door to many cats seeking food and shelter.

From 1900 to 1908, the Dyker Meadow Golf Club had a mascot cat named Lillian Russell who was an expert fishing cat.