Ned: The First Cat to Cross the Brooklyn Bridge

A month before the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, a stray cat named Ned crossed from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a publicity stunt.

Ned was a gray stray cat from Brooklyn who crossed the bridge a month before it officially opened.

On May 24, 1883, Emily Warren Roebling became the first person to cross the completed Brooklyn Bridge by horse-drawn carriage. President Chester A. Arthur presided over the dedication ceremony. What most people don't know is that a month earlier, a stray cat named Ned had already made the crossing.

C.W. McAuliffe, a Manhattan saloon keeper and Republican supporter, wanted the first cat to cross the new bridge. Why? Probably luck. Possibly publicity for his saloon. Either way, he recruited City Alderman James J. Mooney to find a suitable cat.

Mooney searched among Brooklyn's strays and found a gray cat he described as "inclined to see the world." He placed the cat in a basket and presented him to Charles Cyril Martin, the chief engineer and superintendent of the Brooklyn Bridge. Martin handed the basket to a bridge worker.

The worker carried the basket to the center of the bridge, 135 feet above the East River. There, he released the cat. The gray stray followed the worker toward Manhattan, crossing the remaining half of the 1,600-foot span on his own four feet.

When they reached the Manhattan side, the worker placed the cat back in the basket and delivered him to McAuliffe's saloon at Harmony Hall, 17 Centre Street.

At the saloon, surrounded by merry Republican politicians (perhaps they'd had too much gin), the cat was christened "Ned of the Bridge" and presented with a new collar bearing his name. McAuliffe had apparently premade the collar, confident the cat would be male.

The New York Times ran a single paragraph about the event on April 22, 1883, noting that Ned was "inclined to see the world." The article was buried in the middle of the paper. Had historian Peggy Gavan not stumbled upon it by chance while researching a different story, Ned might have been forgotten entirely.

What Happened to Ned?

The historical record goes silent after the christening party. We hope McAuliffe let Ned stay on as the saloon's mascot. Harmony Hall was later taken over by Timothy "Dry Dollar" Sullivan, a Tammany Hall leader, and eventually razed in 1901 to make way for the Hall of Records (now the Surrogate's Courthouse).

Ned wasn't the only cat associated with the Brooklyn Bridge. During construction, a watchman's cat with striking green eyes kept workers company during night shifts. Another cat named Commissioner survived a fall from the bridge and became a mascot for the dock workers below.

On our Brooklyn Heights Cat Tour, we tell the full story of Ned and the other cats who helped christen the bridge. The tour starts at Walt Whitman Park and includes views of the bridge Ned crossed 140 years ago.