The Cat Men of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendships in Old New York

By Peggy Gavan

Winner of the 2019 Certificate of Excellence and MUSE Medallion from the Cat Writers Association

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Release date: May 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781978800236

Book preview

The Cat Men of Gotham

The Cat Men of Gotham

TALES OF FELINE FRIENDSHIPS IN OLD NEW YORK

Peggy Gavan

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gavan, Peggy, author.

Title: The cat men of Gotham : tales of feline friendships in old New York / Peggy Gavan.

Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 2019. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018033646 | ISBN 9781978800229 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978800236 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Cat rescue—New York (State)—New York—History. | Animal welfare—New York (State)—New York—History. | Cats—New York (State)—New York—History.

Classification: LCC HV4766.N49 G38 2019 | DDC 636.8/083209227471—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033646

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2019 by Peggy Gavan

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

∞ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

www.rutgersuniversitypress.org

Manufactured in the United States of America

To Mom—Thank you for being my biggest fan and for encouraging me to follow my dreams.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Seafaring Cats

1893: The Brave and Brawny Cats of the Brooklyn Navy Yard

1898: Tom, the Old Navy Cat Who Survived the USS Maine Explosion

1917–1922: Woo-Ki, Tai-Wan, and the Refugee Pirate Cats of Chelsea Piers

1929: Olaf, the Viking Cat Rescued at Sea En Route to Brooklyn

1933: Tommy Mulligan, the Norton’s Point Lighthouse Cat of Coney Island

2. Police Cats

1893: The Tombs’ Feline Warden That Befriended Prisoners on Murderers’ Row

1904–1911: Pete and Bill, the Bronx Mousers on the Job in Morrisania

1909: Claude, the Police Cat of East Harlem Who Did Justice to a Red Fox

1911: Buster and Topsy, the Rival Feline Mascots of the Lower East Side

1915: Sir Tom, the Rural Police Cat of Washington Heights

1934: Arson and Homicide, the Flat-Footed Felines of Police Headquarters

3. Fire Cats

1886: The Ten Lives of Hero, the Fire Cat of Engine Company No. 1 in Chelsea

1894: Ginger, the Shipbuilders’ Fire Cat of the Lower East Side

1895: Tootsy, the Feline Firefighter of Engine Company No. 27

1896: Peter and Chops, the Ebony and Ivory Fire Cats of the Flatiron District

1913: Peter, the Pole-Sliding Fire Cat of Bushwick, Brooklyn

1924: Smoke, the Famous Lafayette Street Firehouse Cat Who Went on Strike

4. Artist and Editorial Cats

1884: Mutilator and the Legendary Newspaper Office Cats of the New York Sun

1891: Princess, Josephine, and the 101 Feline Models of the Cat Artist J. H. Dolph

1895: Taffy, the Laird, and the Clowder of Town Topics Office Cats

1905: Bambino, the City Cat Who Stole Away from Mark Twain

5. Hospitality Cats

1920: Minnie, the Female Mouser of a Manhattan Men-Only Speakeasy

1928: Abe, the Times Square Tiger Cat Who Refused to Scat from the Hotel Lincoln

1936: Rusty, the Famous Feline Host of the Algonquin Hotel

6. Theatrical and Show Cats

1877–1881: The Felines of the Cat Congress on Bowery and Broadway

1888: Union Square Jim, the Mascot Cat of the Union Square Theatre

1895: Nicodemus, the Prize-Winning Alley Cat of the Prankster Brian G. Hughes

1932: Tommy Casanova, the Lady-Killer Cat Mascot of The Lambs

7. Civil Servant Cats

1891: Old Tom, the Brazen, Pampered Pet of New York City Hall

1904: The Feline Police Squad of New York’s General Post Office

1904: Jerry Fox, the Spectacled Cat of Brooklyn Who Saved Borough Hall

1930: Tammany, the Democratic Boss Cat of New York City Hall

1939: Snooky, the Sophisticated, Salmon-Loving Cat of New York City Hall

8. Good-Luck Cats

1905: Bright Eyes, the Good-Luck Kitten of the Battery-Joralemon Street Tunnel

1910: Trent, the Airship Mascot Cat Who Wowed the Crowd at Gimbels

1927: Ranger I and Ranger III, the Mascot Cats of the New York Rangers

1927: Victory, the Feline Good-Luck Charm of the Brooklyn Robins

9. Lucky Cats

1899: Olympia, the Dewey Arch Cat, and Her Lucky Christmas Kittens

1904 and 1908: Holey and Gittel, the Cats with Ten Lives on the Lower East Side

1906: The East Harlem Cats Bequeathed to President Theodore Roosevelt

1912: Kaiser, the Feline Survivor of the Great Equitable Life Building Fire

1925: Blackie, the Mother Mouser Who Stopped Traffic on Lafayette Street

Suggestions for Further Reading

Notes

Index

About the Author

The Cat Men of Gotham

Introduction

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, feline adventures ranging from the dramatic to the absurd were as popular in newspapers as they are on the internet today. Many reporters attributed anthropomorphic traits to the cats, which is reflected in some of the direct quotes I have selected for the stories in the following nine cat-lives chapters. Although most of the news articles were intended to make readers chuckle, horrific tales of cruelty were also reported in detail. Not only were stray cats sent to the gas chambers by the thousands every year and disposed of in street gutters, but they also faced danger in the form of callous children, misguided citizens, and heartless entrepreneurs on a daily basis. Even the city’s street commissioners made light of the wretched situation with a tongue-in-cheek article in the New York Daily Graphic titled Hints for Spring Gardening, which suggested that old boots, hats, crockery, tin cans, ashes, dead cats, and potato parings should be sown broadcast in many streets, which are now in splendid order for planting. I share the following true accounts from newspaper archives not to shock or dishearten my readers but to provide a social and historical backdrop against which to better appreciate the simple acts of kindness and compassion that a few special men bestowed on the felines featured in this compilation of cat tales of Old New York.

*   *   *

In 1890, five women in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood formed the Society to Befriend Domestic Animals (SBDA). The mission of the SBDA was to provide food and shelter for homeless and maltreated animals and to secure painless death for animals rendered decrepit by accident or incurable ailment. In addition to caring for numerous cats and a few dogs in the home for wayward animals on West 185th Street, they organized a band of female volunteers who fed about two thousand stray cats a week. Unfortunately, several of these Florence Nightingales for felines became Jack the Rippers. Instead of feeding the cats, they lured them with catnip and killed them with chloroform. In this manner, the women killed about fifty cats a night. Eventually, the ladies of the Midnight Band of Mercy were arrested and prosecuted by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (usually referred to as the SPCA by the New York press), but not before they had killed more than three thousand cats.

In 1894, the SPCA agreed to take over the care and control of New York City’s cats and dogs. To empower the SPCA with this authority, the New York State Legislature passed a law titled An Act for the Better Protection of Lost and Strayed Animals, and for Securing the Rights of the Owners Thereof. According to the law, any cat or dog found within the city limits without a collar bearing its name and owner’s address could be seized and destroyed or otherwise disposed of if not redeemed within forty-eight hours. Shelter officials insisted that the doomed animals were treated kindly before they were humanely destroyed and therefore had a happy 48 hours if they had never known happiness before. The fee for redeeming a cat or dog was three dollars, which was a steep price that many New Yorkers were unable to pay. Consequently, countless loved pets were seized and destroyed.

Although the primary intention of the law was to abolish the use of dog catchers—who were often crooked and cruel and took pet dogs by force or theft—it was also enacted to help control the city’s feline population. In summarizing the law, the New York Times said, Every cat without a collar will be regarded as a tramp, and, although the cat catchers will not chase collarless tramp caterwaulers over back fences, they will find other means of getting them into their toils. The worthless animals will be put to death in as humane a manner as possible. Gas will be used to destroy them. When asked how the agents would catch collarless cats, John P. Haines, president of the city’s SPCA, replied, To catch these cats we shall rely upon the co-operation of our good citizens. For example, if a housewife knows of a homeless cat she can easily get it to come to her house or rooms by putting milk or other food in its way, and then catch it and put it into a basket. Then she can send us a postal card, and one of our men will be sent for the cat. By the end of 1899, 164,626 dogs and 315,645 cats had reportedly met their demise courtesy of the SPCA.

In the late nineteenth century, the furs of skunks, dogs, and cats were popular because they were durable and fairly inexpensive. One New York Times reporter noted that with cat skins selling for up to two dollars, trappers and hunters might find profitable employment in the city back yards as well as the northern wilds. Brooklyn resident Herman Fritsch was just one of several New Yorkers who tried to take advantage of this employment opportunity. In 1895, he paid boys to collect stray cats, which he then killed by hanging inside his house. He’d skin the cats and bring the carcasses to saloon keepers and housewives in Williamsburg (who thought they were buying rabbit meat). Fritsch was able to get away with this atrocity for a few months until a large orange tabby broke free from the noose. The cat caused a commotion, which prompted neighbors to call the police. By the time the officers arrived, Fritsch had already recaptured and killed the cat. Fritsch said he didn’t know it was illegal to kill cats in order to make a living. He was arrested and held on $200 bail pending charges from the SPCA. Oh, the irony!

During the summer of 1916, a polio epidemic caused widespread panic throughout the city. Movie theaters and libraries were closed, meetings and public gatherings were canceled, and children were kept from parks, pools, and beaches. Many people, wrongly convinced that cats and dogs were responsible for spreading the disease, released their pets to the streets. SPCA Superintendent Thomas F. Freel tried to convince the public that pets did not spread infantile paralysis, but his words fell on deaf ears. By the end of July, more than eight thousand dogs and seventy-two thousand cats had been disposed of in the society’s gas chambers. Freel told the New York Times, Since the beginning of the alarm over infantile paralysis, we have been receiving on an average of 800 requests a day for our men to call for unwanted domestic pets, mostly cats, in spite of the statement issued by Health Commissioner Emerson that cats do not carry the germs of the disease. Freel theorized that more cats were rounded up because many domestic cats had already been turned loose prior to the epidemic. When people have to economize, he explained, the first thing they decide to do without is the cat and out she goes.

One year later, Dr. Miner C. Hill, president of the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association (BGNA), organized an annual cat roundup to control the neighborhood’s feral cat population. To encourage participation, the association paid five cents or provided tickets to a cat party for every cat delivered to the BGNA playground on Washington Street. The cats were placed in crates and handed over to the SPCA to finish the job. Over almost ten years, the Bowling Green cat massacre resulted in the murder of thousands of cats and kittens at the hands of the SPCA and poor children who would do anything for a shiny nickel. The BGNA later claimed that the roundup was done for humanitarian reasons because the cats were sick and starving. Unfortunately, many healthy pet cats were also captured during this annual open season on felines.

*   *   *

For most of the Dickensian cats of Old New York featured in this book, their turn of good fortune was simply a matter of being in the right place—or sometimes the wrong place—at the right time. But whether they were rescued from near death, protected from a harmful situation, or adopted off the streets to serve as mouser, mascot, money maker, or muse, they all owed their lives (or is that nine lives?) to the hero cat men of Gotham who came to their rescue and welcomed them with open arms and hearts. I must warn you now, not every cat in the following accounts had an easy life. Still, one cannot but admire the profound effect that many of these felines had on the brawny men who came to adore them and value them as much more than expert rodent exterminators or good-luck charms.

1

Seafaring Cats

The special relationship between sailors and cats dates back thousands of years. According to the United States Naval Institute, although ship cats were primarily responsible for killing the rats that gnawed at the ship’s ropes and provisions, it was also common for crews to adopt or liberate cats from foreign lands. These cats served as souvenirs as well as surrogates for the pets the sailors had left back home. They also provided companionship and a sense of security for men who were often away from loved ones for long periods of time.

Many sailors believed that a cat’s behavior could also help predict the weather. For example, if the ship’s cat licked its fur against the grain, a hailstorm was looming. When a cat sneezed, rain was coming. If the feline was frisky, the sailors could expect high winds. Some superstitious sailors even believed cats could effect stormy weather with magic powers stored in their tails.

Feline mascots were also in high demand because sailors believed cats brought good luck to a ship. A ship that set sail without a cat would be plagued by bad luck. And heaven forbid a cat mascot fall overboard. Sailors thought this was a bad omen that would cause the ship to sink in a terrible storm. Even if the ship were to survive, a ship that lost its feline mascot to the sea would be cursed with years of bad luck.

Crewmen of the USS Olympia on deck with their two ship cats in 1898. Note the one sailor playing with a cat using a mirror and sunlight. (Photograph by George Grantham [NH 43211], courtesy of the Naval History & Heritage Command)

In the 1800s and 1900s, cats of all nations gathered on the piers in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Feline colonies were especially prolific during wartime, when almost every ship had at least one cat. Although some of the cats were born on the piers, many were refugees that had traveled to New York on the various steamships taking part in the war efforts. Most of these cats, like Tom of the USS Maine, were old salts that spent their entire life at sea. Others, like Minnie of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, were landlubbers that preferred to stay behind on the docks to do their mouse-catching duties.

Today, most modern commercial and naval vessels no longer permit cats (the Russian navy sea kittens are one exception). However, recent news articles about sailors jumping into the seas to rescue drowning kittens and online videos of brawny recreational boaters bonding with their feline companions prove that the special bond between cat and sailor still thrives.

1893

The Brave and Brawny Cats of the Brooklyn Navy Yard

In the late nineteenth century, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was overrun with rats. The voracious rodents gnawed at every dock, causing extensive damage. The losses in rigging, spare sails, and other wares were also great. Officials tried traps and poisons, but the rats simply made a sport of it and got fat on the poisoned food. The United States Navy recruited some dogs to help with the cause, but the canines were no match for the clever rats (the dogs would bolt out of the yard in terror whenever they encountered the bold rodents). Unfortunately, there were very few mousers available during this time. To be sure, plenty of kittens had been born at the yard over the years, but most cats and kittens were quickly scooped up by sailors who wanted a good-luck mascot. The few cats left behind helped as best they could, but the rodent population was too much for only a few felines to handle.

The situation changed in 1893, when a few neighboring landlubber cats entered the Brooklyn Navy Yard to do some exploring. Upon discovering the large rodent population, these cats decided to hide from the sailors and stay in place rather than go out to sea. The new terra-firma cats went into high gear, and within a few years, the rodent population was under control.

In November 1900, President William McKinley appointed forty-two-year-old Francis Tiffany Bowles to the position of Rear Admiral, Chief Constructor of the Navy. By this time, there were more cats than rodents at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. However, the young officer told his men that they were not to hurt or interfere with any of the cats that prowled in the yard. Rear Admiral Bowles understood how valuable the felines were to the shipyard. They did not cost the government a penny, and in fact they saved the United States thousands of dollars a year by keeping the rats and mice away from the storage sheds and shops. Not only did the men abide by the officer’s orders, but many were more than willing to share scraps of food with the mousers at lunch time. When the bells tolled at noon, the cats would come running to their respective dining stations.

*   *   *

Two of the veteran cats who arrived at the yard in 1893 were Tom and Minnie. These two black cats did their policing in the electrical building, where large quantities of oiled silk and other insulating materials were stored. The rats were quite attracted to these materials and had often gnawed on them before the dynamic feline duo came to town. Tom was a large cat, while Minnie, the smallest working cat in the yard, was not much bigger than a kitten. Despite her size, Minnie was the best ratter in yard. One workman told a New York Times reporter that she was probably the best ratter in the world. Minnie had full run of the machine rooms, and she knew how to protect every wheel and strap. She’d dodge among the whirling belts and wheels in hot pursuit and tackle rats as big as herself. She could jump up to eight feet; once she jumped down a flight of stairs to land on a rat’s back. As one workman noted, She deserves a gold medal for preserving the property of the United States government.

Jerry, the oldest cat in the yard, arrived soon after Tom and Minnie in 1893. His feline partner was George Dewey, who came to the yards in 1897. The two were responsible for patrolling the rigging loft in Building 8 on Chauncey Avenue. This loft had at one time been infested with rats and mice that did tremendous damage to the rigging. George and Jerry worked alongside the master sailmaker William L. Cowan, a veteran of the navy who had served with the Paraguay Expedition of 1858 and the Potomac Squadron during the Civil War. Cowan took charge of the sailmaking department at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1889, just after Commodore George Dewey ordered that every ship repaired at Brooklyn also have its sails made at the yard. According to Cowan, once George and Jerry went on the job, the loft was free of rodents, and he no longer had to worry about them running over his feet or trying to run up his pants. You have no idea of the change that has taken place there, Cowan told the reporter. The mice used to be awful. They were so bold and fearless that they would come scampering over our hands while we were working at the rigging here.

Jerry was the most unusual of the landlubber cats in the yard, as he was the only one to have gone to sea and come back. According to Cowan, Jerry took two trips on American ships and one voyage on the Monongahela with the Asiatic Squadron. Jerry also had a habit of taking long trips away from the shipyard about once a month, leaving George alone to handle the rodents in the rigging loft. No matter how long Jerry stayed away though, he would always return and work overtime when the mice started to show up again. One time, Jerry was taken against his will by one of the workmen who wanted to domesticate him. Jerry was not about to be a house cat, so he escaped and returned to the yard the next day. Some of the workers believed that he must have followed the sound of the lunch bell tolling at noon.

J. A. Cook, a workman in the ship carpenters’ department, also had a cat, whom he named Joan of Arc. According to Cook, Joan of Arc was a Republican feline from Omaha; however, he noted, she could smell a rat just as quick as if she were a Democrat. The workmen in this shop said they could set their watches by Joan, because she showed up every day at 11:55 a.m. to get some scraps of food and milk before any other cats arrived when the lunch bell rang.

Another Brooklyn Navy Yard cat was Jennie, a tortoiseshell feline employed in Building 20, the iron-plating shop. Here, she worked with her owner, Bob Duke, in the construction and repairs department. She was the expert ratter in residence, and it was her job to teach all her kittens the skills they needed to get their mouse. According to Duke, Jennie had kittens about every three months, and most of them were taken all over the world by the sailors who adopted them as ship mascots. Before the kittens headed to sea, though, Jennie would give each one lessons in rodent catching. She would do this by depositing a dead mouse on the floor and then carrying one of the kittens to the dead rodent. She’d then get into a crouching position at some distance from the mouse, pounce on it with a sudden spring, and growl fiercely. After repeating these steps several times, she would step aside and let the kitten mimic her actions.

During the war years, many of the shipyard cats headed out to sea as mascots of the warships, which helped keep the land-based population in check. But ten years after World War II ended, the cat colonies started getting out of hand, forcing the navy to set traps and override the old rules established by Rear Admiral Bowles in 1900. The cats had a hero in Bill Wade, a grizzled, tattooed old sailor and journeyman who thought cats were the greatest sailors in the world. Wade would go around springing the traps to help save all the cats that he cared for and loved. Twice he was suspended for disabling the cat traps. He must have done a good job saving them though: by the time he retired in 1965, there were about fifteen hundred cats on the property.

In June 1966, one week after the government officially closed the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Wade reached out to Judith Scofield, who had founded the Save a Cat League in 1957. The two met with Rear Admiral William Francis Petrovic, several enlisted men, representatives from the city health department, and representatives from the Brooklyn branch of the ASPCA to discuss the fate of the abandoned cats. The Save a Cat League was given three months to find homes for any cats the navy could safely trap. Just a few hours before the meeting, however, three men reportedly came to the yard and stole many of the cats. Scofield and Wade were furious. What happened to those cats who were taken away just hours before we came and who were those men? Scofield asked. Are those cats covered by the agreement the navy made with us? According to Scofield, many people had expressed a desire to have a shipyard cat, and her organization would have found good homes for all of them had they not been stolen.

Today, many descendants of the twentieth-century Brooklyn Navy Yard mousers that dodged capture are still roaming the property and living in feral cat colonies. As more neighborhoods throughout Brooklyn and the other boroughs are gentrified, cat activists must continuously address the city’s serious feral cat problem by setting up food stations, building shelters, and implementing Trap-Neuter-Return to humanely control and reduce the cat population.

*   *   *

The New York Naval Shipyard, more popularly known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard, is located on the Wallabout Bay, a knee-shaped bend in the East River. The bay takes its name from a group of French-speaking Walloons from Belgium who settled on the Brooklyn waterfront in the mid-seventeenth century. One of the first settlers to the area was Joris Jansen Rapalje, a tavern keeper who purchased about 335 acres of land in June 1637 and established a farm near what was then called Waal-Bogt Bay (bay of the foreigners). Over the years, Wallabout Village grew into a small farming and milling community of about a dozen interrelated families living along the shore of the bay, just north of present-day Flushing Avenue.

In 1791, the shipbuilder John Jackson and his brothers Samuel and Treadwell acquired from the Commissioners of Forfeiture a one-hundred-acre crescent-shaped tract adjacent to the bay. The Jackson brothers built a small shipyard on an existing dock and about ten houses for their workers. Ten years later, in 1801, they sold their shipyard to the United States government for $40,000. President John Adams’s administration authorized the establishment of a naval shipyard in Brooklyn in 1801, and in 1806 the property became an active United States Navy shipyard.

In 1966, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara closed the Brooklyn Navy Yard and ninety other military bases and installations. At the time of its closing, the yard comprised more than two hundred acres and employed more than nine thousand workers. New York City reopened the yard as an industrial park in 1969, and today the yard is managed by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.

DID YOU KNOW?

Following the Battle of Long Island in 1776, thousands of Continental Army soldiers were taken prisoner and transferred to British ships anchored in Wallabout Bay. Overcome by disease, fires, flogging, and squalid conditions, about 11,500 soldiers died on the overcrowded prison ships. Many of the dead were thrown overboard or buried in mass graves in the mud flats along the bay. Others were hastily buried in a sandy hill adjacent to today’s Flushing Avenue. During the years that the Jackson brothers owned the Wallabout Bay property, many bones of the dead Continental soldiers were exposed as the tide eroded the beach. Other graves were uncovered during grading for the navy yard. In 1808, the remains were placed in thirteen coffins, representing the thirteen original colonies. The coffins were reportedly placed in a vault on John Jackson’s farm outside the navy shipyard wall, at the corner of Jackson Street (now Hudson Avenue) and York Street. In 1873, the remains were moved to a large brick vault in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park. The renowned New York City architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White designed a monument for the vault in 1905, which was dedicated as the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument on November 14, 1908.

1898

Tom, the Old Navy Cat Who Survived the USS Maine Explosion

During the 1800s and early 1900s, the Brooklyn Navy Yard served as a pseudo receiving and distributing station for the animal mascots of US warships. Some of these animals were Brooklyn natives that were born at the navy yard, while others were visitors that stopped by during their many years at sea.

In the late 1800s, an Italian American sailor named Cosmero Aquatero was working as a barber on the USS Vermont, which was then serving as a store and receiving ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.