NY Harbor police rescue a black cat hanging on for life on the rudder of a steamship. He was taken aboard the police boat to recuperate but was not warmly greeted by Fanny. Fanny was another cat who had made the boat her home when it was being...

A Red Hook cat invaded the British steamship BADAGERY while the vessel was docked in Erie Basin and proceeded to terrorize the small members of the crew.  Katy Cockroach, the cook’s speckled hen, stopped laying eggs and became “lean and...

Tossed and damaged by strong winds the ANDROMEDA, a four-masted British bark out of Belfast, Ireland arrived at the Erie Basin with tattered sails. The passage was hard on the crew: “Frank Dunn a seaman apprentice, fell from the rigging and...

In The Brooklyn  Standard Union’s column about  reader’s interesting experiences, Gustave tells how a BIG cat gave him the shock of his life when he visited a tramp steamer docked in Erie Basin.  (A tramp steamer is ship without a fixed...

Hi, I’m PortSide’s ship cat, Chiclet.   Listen up. I have experience with this resiliency thing, and my celebrity status can help get the word out. I was listed in Time Out Magazine’s top NYC mascots, you know. I am here to help PortSide...

From the 1920s there existed a shanty town in Red Hook, largely populated by underemployed sailors and dockworkers.  With little money or hope some took to drinking a poisonous homemade brew called smoke .   In 1932, a number of smokies ,  those...

“Next to killing a cat on board ships, is to maltreat a cat in a ship's chandlery. The ship chandlery cat is a beautiful specimen that is stroked by every seaman who comes in. Its function in life is to take care of the big rats that come from the...

In the summer of 1929, Olaf the cat, mascot of the brand new South American freight and passenger ship, SUD AMERICANA, was swept overboard during a storm.  Captain Bjor Boettger and his Norwegian crew immediately went into action.   ...

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