Hatching cat - 1941: The WWII “Aristocats” of the Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Club

Posted: August 25, 2013 

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Brooklyn-Long Island Cat club hosted its shows at several hotels, including the Granada and the St. George in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Public Library

On February 28, 1941, Royal Air Force planes bombed Asmara, Eritrea, as the British gained control of the air over East Africa during World War II. Also on this day, Hitler was preparing to give orders to camp commandant Rudolph Hoss for the expansion of the Auschwitz prison camp, to accommodate 100,000 prisoners of war and 30,000 “peacetime” prisoners.
Meanwhile in Brooklyn, New York, Mrs. Silas M. Andrews and Mrs. Edward D. Mudge were holding their first meeting of the Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Club with an afternoon tea in the Tower Room at the luxurious Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights.

Ann Mudge kept alley cats in the backyard of her home on Poplar Street (white building) in the 1940s.

“The Hotel St. George is yours.”
The Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Club was the brainchild of Ann Mudge of Brooklyn Heights. Although Mrs. Mudge had a pampered Persian named Chou Chou Bu, the backyard of her federal-style townhouse at 64 Poplar Street was home to numerous alley cats, including one of her favorite strays, Kitten Mitten. Mrs. Mudge was very concerned that Brooklyn had no animal shelter and no clinic for which the poor could take their sick pets.
Sometime in 1940, Ann Mudge approached Martin Samuels, manager of the Hotel St. George, which was just five blocks from her home. “Let’s have a cat show,” she told him. “And let’s ask not only champions but the grocer’s cat and the police station mouser and poor children’s pets.” Mr. Samuels, a reported pet lover, agreed to her suggestion. “Fine,” he said. “The hotel is yours.”

Only 30 rooms when it was first built in 1885, the Hotel St. George eventually amounted to eight interconnected buildings that occupied the full city block bounded by Clark, Henry, Pineapple and Hicks streets. The St. George boasted 2,632 guest rooms, a huge 11,000 square foot ballroom and a 120-foot natural salt water indoor swimming pool (which my dad says he swam in as a child).

The inaugural Brooklyn Heights Neighborhood Pet Cat Show at the Hotel St. George was so successful that its backers resolved to form a cat club. The purpose of the club, which was written in the club’s constitution, was to create a fund for a shelter and clinic that would provide medical attention for poor and homeless animals. Among those who were encouraged to attend the organizational meeting on February 28, 1941, were editors of pet magazines and “other authorities on felines.”
Charter Brooklyn and Long Island members of the cat club included Mrs. Helen Picciano, Mrs. Mildred Pike, Mrs. Charlotte Harkness, Mrs. C.R. Hartmann, Miss Marion Dietz, and Mrs. Clara H. Baker. Mrs. Norah Andrews served as president; Mrs. Clara R. Richards and Mrs. Freeman L. Meinertz were vice presidents; Mrs. George L. Packer was recording secretary; and Dr. Irving Altman was the club veterinarian.

Mrs. Norah Andrews, a charter member of the Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Club, bred Smoke Persians, like those shown here. Her cattery, Sunny Knoll, was located at her estate on Merrick Avenue in East Meadow. Norah was also president of the Cat Fanciers’ Federation.

In 1941, the club had about 50 members and met once a month in the Tower Room at the St. George. A little black and white cat, one of a litter domiciled by the hotel’s housekeeping department, was named Kitten BLI and chosen as the club’s masot.
In order to raise money to establish a cat shelter and clinic in Brooklyn, the ladies hosted numerous cat shows, the first few of which took place in the exotic Egyptian Club on the rooftop garden of the Hotel St. George.

The recently renovated rooftop garden (2011) was once a sensational nightclub called the Egyptian Club. Opened in 1929, it had a full orchestra on the upper level and tables below. The Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Club held its first few cat shows on the rooftop in the early 1940s.

During the war years, the club also purchased war bonds and published an article for women about the benefits of having a cat in the home:
A Cat in Your Home? Plea made for Tabby
Women whose men have gone to war and who have taken a war job for the duration need not come home to a lonely apartment or house these days, according to Mae Wagner Carlysle of the Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Club, whose headquarters are in the Hotel St. George.
The well-known cat’s meow might well be the feline version of the hit, “I’m so nice to come home to,” it is claimed. Cats are easily trained, can be left alone for many hours, are scrupulously clean and are most affectionate, said Miss Carlysle. Mrs. Elsie M. Collins of Riverdale, manager of the Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Show, which will be held in the St. George on Oct. 19 and 20, said that it does not matter whether a cat is a Persian, Siamese or just one of the “alleys,” women will get a lot of comfort and companionship from such a pet. Proceeds of the coming show will go towards building an animal shelter and clinic in Brooklyn. (Brooklyn Eagle, October 6, 1943)

The first meeting of the BLI Cat Club was held in the Tower Room at the Hotel St. George.

Mr. Chips, Princess Mickey, and Prince
The Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Club’s shows were not just about showing purebred cats. There were awards for the most heroic cat, the funniest cat, the oldest and the ugliest cats.
A handsome tabby named Prince won the prize for “cat of distinction” in the late 1940s because he kept the mice away from the door at the Norwegian Seaman’s Home on Hanson Place.

Prince with his owner, Sugar Miller, probably late 1940s. Brooklyn Public Library

In 1944, the club moved from the Hotel St. George to the Hotel Woodstock in Manhattan, where they had their fourth-annual cat show.

This adorable Tuxedo kitty participated at the 1947 cat show at the Hotel Granada. Brooklyn Public Library

Some of the cats of this show included Bonnie Jean, 10, exhibited by Mrs. A.E. Townsend of Ardsley; Bonnie Maid o’the Mist; Silver Boy Brutus, raised from an alley cat by Mrs. Helen Piciano of 55th Avenue, Maspeth; and Mister Chips, a white Angora who played ball, sat up for meat like a dog and enjoyed going for walks on a leash.

Built in 1903 at 127 West 43rd Street a half-block east of Times Square, the Beaux-Arts luxury Woodstock Hotel featured 400 rooms, plus restaurants, a ballroom, and allegedly a fountain pool with live alligators.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the club held its shows at the Hotel Granada at 268 Ashland Place in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. There does not appear to be any more mention of the BLI Cat Club after the early 1950s.
Today there are several cat clubs in Brooklyn and Long Island, including the Booklyn Cat Fanciers, Long Island’s Gold Coast Cat Fanciers, and Long Island Cat Fanciers.

Princess Mickey was Queen of the Brooklyn-Long Island Cat Show at the Hotel Granada in 1948.

The Hotel Granada, pictured in the 1950s, was completed in 1927. Well into the 1960s, the hotel was a favored venue for events in the area — visiting baseball teams reportedly stayed there when playing the Dodgers. In 1994, after about a decade of housing homeless families in deplorable conditions, the hotel was torn down and turned into a parking lot. Brooklyn Public Library

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