New York City has seen its share of turf wars, but have you ever heard of one fought over cats? In the spring of 1899, a bizarre battle broke out between cat-loving and cat-hating tenants at the Windermere, a grand apartment building on West 57th Street. It all started when someone formed an "Anti-Cat Club" and nearly a dozen pet cats turned up dead.
The stage for this feline fiasco was one of the city's most unique residences: The Windermere. Located at 400 West 57th Street, this was no ordinary apartment house. By the 1890s, its forward-thinking manager, Henry Sterling Goodale, had turned it into a haven for the city’s “new women”—single, financially independent artists, writers, and performers who didn’t want to live with their parents. A bohemian spirit filled the halls, and with these creative women came their beloved pets. Especially cats.
Unfortunately, not everyone was a fan of felines. A few male tenants and a woman with a mischievous pug named Puggy were decidedly anti-cat. This is where our story really begins.
The Dog vs. Cat Showdown
The Windermere featured a large central courtyard where residents and their pets could mingle. Puggy, the pug, found great joy in chasing every cat he saw. After numerous complaints went ignored, the cat owners decided to fight fire with fire. They brought in a champion: "a large, well-trained, meat-fed cat from a neighboring butcher shop."
A newspaper at the time gave a thrilling play-by-play. When Puggy charged the new arrival, the butcher's cat was ready. As the New York Sun reported, it "met Puggy with a few well-chosen swings, jabs and uppercuts." The rest of the "performance" involved Puggy shrieking while the cat handily won the day. After that, no dog dared challenge the cats for control of the courtyard.
The Midnight Concerts Begin
Victorious and emboldened, the cats claimed the courtyard as their own. Every night, they gathered to celebrate, treating the entire building to what can only be described as very loud, very off-key concerts. These nightly jam sessions drove some residents mad.
One newspaper lamented that cats named Mousie, Sweetheart, and Angeline “lifted up their voices in song often, alas, too often.” Things grew heated. One fed-up tenant began cursing out his window every night, which offended the "literary ladies" of the building. Tensions simmered until one morning, a dead tabby was found in the courtyard. In its paws was a card with a morbid riddle: "Why is a Cat Like a Swan?" The chilling answer: it was the cat's swan song.
The Rise of the Anti-Cat Club
A few days later, another cat was found dead next to a broken pitcher. The pitcher's owner, an artist, claimed the cat must have gotten its head stuck while trying to drink milk he'd left on his window ledge and fell. He then had the audacity to demand the cat's owner reimburse him 18 cents for the pitcher.
When she refused, he announced the formation of the "Anti-Cat Club." A few lawyers and an accountant immediately pledged their allegiance. The war was on.
The pranks escalated. The club members bragged about hitting cats with golf clubs. They hung a stuffed cloth cat outside a woman's window with a sign that read, “Presented for autopsy by the Anti-Cat Club.” Another night, they tossed firecrackers into the courtyard, sending the feline choir scattering in terror. Over the next few days, a horrifying total of 13 cats were found dead from gunshot wounds.
A Shot in the Dark
The villain, however, made a crucial mistake. He took a shot at Black Paul, a large, beloved cat belonging to Gus Johnson, the building’s elevator boy. One of the women heard the rifle crack and traced the sound to the basement. There, a "detective squad" of cat-loving ladies cornered the building’s carpenter, Charles Beard, as he was hanging a rifle on the wall.
The women summoned the police and an agent from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Beard was charged and hauled off to the West 54th Street Police Court. But in a disappointing twist, the case fell apart. Gus, the elevator boy, refused to press charges since Black Paul was slowly recovering. Without a human witness or a plaintiff, the magistrate had to dismiss the case. The cat killer of the Windermere got away with it.
As for Black Paul, his fighting spirit was broken. The women reported he would likely die of a broken heart and vowed that when he did, they would bury him "with full honors and an inscription declaring him the victim of a murder plot of the Anti-Cat Club."
The Windermere Today
So what became of this dramatic residence? After a long, storied history that included periods of both glamour and decay, the magnificent Windermere was designated a New York City Landmark in 2005, saving it from demolition.
Today, you can still see the striking building standing proudly at the corner of West 57th Street and Ninth Avenue. As you walk by, take a moment to imagine the Gilded Age drama that unfolded within its walls. And if you listen closely, you might just hear the faint, ghostly meow of a song on the wind.
