At a Crossroads

Myrtle, Central & DeKalb is Bushwick’s then, now and will be

At 5 a.m. on a small corner of a famous city unceasingly buzzing with activity, all is quiet except for the sound of a closing door, and the occasional train overhead. By streetlight, you can see an intimation of a man dressed in black with a head of thick black hair. He locks the doors of the Bushwick Public House, the bar that sits on the corner of Myrtle and Central Avenue. He walks around a corner and out of sight. There is silence but only for a moment.

At this intersection there are two mornings and they nearly touch each other. As the street empties of people finished with their last drinks a new set of morning goers takes over. The eastern horizon slowly turns a shade of green and a few people pass the intersection, some only briefly, urged forward by the train they hear coming. Others have time for a cup of coffee and a walking meal. It is 6 a.m. and there are two options for coffee, the Sunrise Deli and OMG Pizza, directly opposite each other on Myrtle Avenue.   

Traffic begins to busy the intersection with sounds. Two yellow school buses hum as they wait for the traffic light to turn green while a third school bus passes across them. Every five minutes or so, at a lull in the traffic, a different kind of humming can be heard from starlings ­–maybe a hundred of them – perched on the unused station house above.

Eventually, a small man passes, pushing a shopping cart as tall as himself over the designated crossways. He walks over the road between DeKalb and Central Avenue, then over DeKalb and Myrtle and once more over Myrtle and Central to land right under the Central M Station stairway. At this time of the morning, he may be the only one not jaywalking diagonally across the roads. With a striped red umbrella and two large orange plastic coffee containers, and some cups, he becomes the third coffee option on the intersection. The air is icy, the coffee vendor huddles his neck into his puffed jacket and keeps his hands deep in his pockets as he stands waiting for customers. 

At 7 a.m., people walking in pairs—more specifically mother and child pairs—replace the solo walkers. A mother chases her child who is whizzing down Myrtle on a scooter. Elsewhere, a little boy with a bag so big that it looks as if he may topple forward holds his mother’s hand as they cross the road. These pairs use the crosswalks diligently. A mother and daughter run to catch the B38 Bus that is easing back into the traffic, they miss it. Nearby is parked a dark green Chrysler; from the back of it you can hear a woman’s voice greeting the displeased pair with a friendly “hello sweetie.”

At about 7:10 a.m., a Manhattan-bound train approaches on the elevated track, boasting a big M on the front of it. It passes the unused station house and a black cloud of birds flies off it into the grey sky. It is at this moment that you realize you have not heard the birds in a while; there are no longer the small lulls of silence. It is rush hour at the intersection.

 At 7:30 a.m. on the dot the crossing guard jumps out the back of the parked Chrysler throws away the empty coffee cup from the Sunrise Deli and eases her way into the middle of the intersection. She blows her whistle three times and takes a position in the middle of it all; her rush-hour show has begun. It is clear that she is a neighborhood favorite. She immediately gives a lady on the sidewalk a big hug and walks her personally across the street. By the time she is back in the middle of her intersection she spots a white car and goes over to speak to the driver she knows. When a B38 bus drives by she waves hello to the driver and all the while she is singing, and making sure – with a loud blow of her whistle and a ‘let’s go sweetie’ in a tone that implies only absolute care – that her crossing pedestrians are getting to the other sidewalk safely. No one dares to cut through the middle of the intersection now.

The traffic guard stands in the middle of a six-way intersection where Myrtle, Central and DeKalb Avenue meet under an elevated railway and over storage houses, music venues, and lines and lines of electrical cords and pipes. People will tell you that this space is in transition; this is true for the whole of Bushwick in which it resides. Since Peter Stuyvesant charted it in 1661, Bushwick’s main theme has been transition. Michael Sheehan, an old MTA driver, will tell you how dangerous it became in the late 1970s, while William Jetter, the barber, will tell you about the business boom in the early 2000s, and Raul Valencia, a bartender, will speak about the shift in his clientele from students to young professionals over the past three years.

The first train stopped over Myrtle Avenue at its new station, named Central, on December 19, 1889. The elevated station had platforms covered with beige canopies framed in a metal, which was painted a rich green. The noise of the north and southbound trains rattling overhead has been a constant part of the crossway’s ambiance ever since.

Now every five or so minutes the rattling M train will interrupt the conversations of smokers standing in front of the huge window of the Bushwick Public House. Directly opposite, the train will stop the chatter of people eating falafels on the benches outside OMG Pizza, coincidently located in the bottom of a building that closely resembles the shape of a pizza slice. You won’t hear the voices of the two old women crossing the street, or the singing traffic cop

guiding them over. And just for a moment, the train passing the tracks overhead will drown out the bachata music that seeps out the blue-lit restaurant called Caribe and the bass notes thumping out of a parked car.

But on Saturday the 23rd of March 2019, the M train does not run, and there is a deafening silence. This will happen every second weekend this year while they repair the tracks. It is 10 a.m. and the streets are not busy. Instead, we hear new sounds. The Sunrise Deli has the sounds of sizzling meat, a knife hitting a board three or four times a second, a paper packet being folded, a shout from Abdul to Nicholas at the counter as a sandwich in white paper is flung in the air, and caught, a sudden jangling of coins, the words “next, yes.”

Back outside the sounds of a heavy metal door being pulled up announce the opening of the Little Shop of Soil, the brand-new boutique plant shop across the road. The intersection has many of these little stores opening amongst its older businesses. The Bushwick Public House opened in 2015, while across the road on Myrtle Avenue, Fly Guyz Barbershop opened 18 months ago, and Little Shop of Soil, has only been open for a month and a half. This is reminiscent of the business boom in Bushwick in the 1800s before the neighborhood was burnt to the ground in the 1977 riots that followed the great New York City blackout. Mike who moved out of Bushwick more than 30 years ago remembers driving the MTA 7 bus through these areas, “you would go past east Brooklyn and the entire street was leveled, there wasn’t a building in the block.” 

***

On an April afternoon – 2 p.m. on Monday the 25th – the intersection is all about business. As you descend the stairs of the Central M station, a black chalkboard on an A-frame propped up on wheels advertises a room for rent, $1700 per month. The next day it has gone down to $1680. If you hang around until around 7 p.m., you will see a man wheel away the sign down Central Avenue, eventually turning on to Harman Street. As he does, another man is handing out flyers to a comedy show down the road. He stands outside the Fine Fare Market, a grocery store on the intersection next to six dispenser machines that promise transparent plastic balls filled with different things. 75, 50 or 25 cents will get you toys, stickers or bouncy balls made wondrous by their packaging.  

And among the intersections’ colors are the murals that overwhelm the sidewalks of Bushwick. Standing in the Bushwick Public House – looking out onto the intersection through the huge window – murals surround you. The entire belly of the pub is covered in mermaids, stern faces, jungle foliage, and fish scales. Two more murals face you on the other side of Myrtle Avenue. One has two eyes, each with their own pair of long legs and feet in sneakers looking at each other with the caption “eye to eye.” The second is the face of a serious-looking child, eyes painted to look up at the overhead train, ears trickling water droplets. To the left of these and towards DeKalb Avenue, three lime green pallets on metal door grates are ready to be painted but remain blank for now. The green walls belong to the flower shop; the entrance is on the other side facing DeKalb. Next to it, a wall fashions a mural of a lady with a red flower for a head, wearing green overalls. If we cross the road to OMG pizza, its pizza-shaped wall boasts a giant anthropomorphic pizza monster. It is grotesque enough to make you stare, but one may slowly start to appreciate the wormy-looking pizza man depicted on the wall, in a suit, holding a cigarette.

***

To some nervous locals, the murals serve as a barometer indicating the neighborhood’s next transition. For an area constantly going through change it is hard to determine what it means to be local. In the 1980s ­– as Mike drove through Bushwick – he watched neighborhoods change in front of his eyes, and yet he would drive past little pockets of areas where communities survived despite influxes and outflows. William Jetter, the self-proclaimed “Brooklyn Baby,” registers demographic change just by seeing who lands up in his barber chair, noticing that in the last five years, more people have moved into the neighborhood than locals who have stayed. Growing up, William struggled to find a barber in Bushwick who could cut his hair. That wouldn’t be a problem now.

The Bushwick Public House is less likely to be considered a local on the intersection, and yet before you could find a barbershop in Bushwick, you would come across bars strewn across sidewalks. In1869, there were so many German breweries here that the 14-block neighborhood became known as “Breweries Row” until the early 90s, when Prohibition caused most of the breweries to close. Raul questions the idea of what it means to be a local in Bushwick, “I don’t know how you qualify it, like are they local because you own a house in the neighborhood or because they are renting a place in the neighborhood, or local because they happen to here for one or two years.” Locality is complicated in a neighborhood overwhelmed with ephemeral moments of history.

On an early spring Friday evening, the intersection is magic. It is 7 p.m. and deep orange sunlight bleeds through the overhead tracks, creating dramatic shadows on the sidewalk and road. Between the tracks and the ground, a buzz of energy slowly builds. Relieved crowds of people disembark their trains, descending stairs to the street below leaving their week in the city. People are more likely to stop now at the intersection, maybe to pop into the Fine Fare Market to pick up some groceries for dinner. Sometimes they will wait, as the cashiers call up to a window by the roof prompting a man to throw a small bucket – attached to a string and filled with money –to the cashier who takes the money and transfers it to the register before the bucket is yanked back up towards the window.

People seeking food, drinks, or sometimes just a place to stop and talk open the doors of the businesses exposing the intersection to the music in pulsations of volume and pace. Through the doors of Fly Guyz Barbershop, Fall by Nigerian singer Davido is playing, three men are sitting on a very large white futon positioned in the middle of the small barbershop. Two barbers meticulously work on their clients’ hair and beards, spending a great deal of time washing, cutting and styling. The men waiting do not seem to be in a rush, the barber is open until 10 p.m. and they sit casually, enthusiastically speaking about this weekend’s big gig. If William the owner is running very late, he isn’t shy to send his clients to the Bushwick Public House across the road for a beer while they wait. The slathering of Lucky Tiger message oil from a large white tub is the sign that the appointment is nearly done.

***

Back on the street, the intersection gets dark quickly, and soon the harsher light from cars and LED signs promising cold beer, coffee and ATMs replace the soft dappled sky light shining through the tracks. Some businesses like the Sunrise Deli still use the iconic neon signs, bringing to the intersection a nostalgia of the 70s in New York. Before neon lights, early in the 20th century, the intersection flickered with the earliest electric streetlights. And during an even earlier time evening would be marked by the arrival of the lamplighters carrying long poles with wicks. At dusk, they would walk along the sidewalks, lighting each street lamp.

The thought of this reminds us that as drastically and quickly as the intersection changes character throughout the day, it will change over the years. A new residential development that recently went up a few blocks down from the intersection is expected to bring 250,000 new people to the neighborhood, and the intersection will have to adapt. The latest addition to the crossway – only four days old – is the Citi Bike rack, installed at the corner of Central and DeKalb Avenue. “That’s just the nature of things,” Raul says, standing behind the bar he has stood behind for two and a half years. “You try avoid the change for as long as you can but ultimately things change. So do neighborhoods.”

***

When it gets too dark, people retreat from the streets into the warm light of buildings. It is 10 p.m. and music thumps in the Bushwick Public House. When inside, it is too loud to hear the train overhead. Instead, you feel it as it rattles along the tracks. The train is more intrusive when dark. Momentarily, it will light up the entire 6-way intersection. From a high chair by the window of the pub you can watch the train by its reflection that moves over four slim windows, across the road above Fly Guyz Barbershop. These windows are otherwise dark, their inhabitants either asleep or out. 

If you stick around for long enough, you could witness a duel, not by drunken patrons or aggressive New Yorkers. Bushwick – as Mike describes it – is not like it was in the 70s when at night one would have to keep an eye behind their back in case of trouble. On the sidewalk tonight, two men find themselves in the midst of a sword fight.

Earlier that evening, Shmuel Chayempour walked into the Bushwick Public House. He is a stocky man with a thick black beard, wearing a white shirt. Knotted fringes – known as tzitzit – come out of his black suit pants, and a small round kippah balances on the crown of his head. Coming from a religious Jewish family, Shmuel is used to people staring at him for the way he dresses but these days in bars at night they stare because of the two large black swords that hang by his waist. If you went up to Shmuel in the busy pub to question him about his swords, he wouldn’t say much, instead he would hand you one and tell you to come outside.

The door of the Bushwick Public House opens; it lets the sounds of the pub onto the street before shutting behind Shmuel and an intrigued man now with a sword in hand. The street again is quiet bar the voices from smokers, and a car passing every few minutes. The men start to fight, and suddenly the sounds of the heavy swords making contact echo throughout the intersection. The aim is to hit the bicep, chest or side stomach, while at the same time making sure you don’t get hit, the score slowly crawls towards six, the typical end goal.

Three jazzy looking old timers open the door of the pub again filling the sidewalk with music. They are wheeling large bags of instruments to a parked car nearby. Their gig in the basement of the Bushwick Public House has just ended. They move carefully around the sword fighters not especially surprised or perturbed because they – like our sword fighter – are regulars. Finally, Shmuel strikes the bicep of his opponent, marking his final victory. The duelers shake hands, a train clatters past and lights up the sidewalk like a theater at the end of a performance. After a spar with Shmuel, you would understand why every Saturday he brings his swords out. To duel outside a pub late at night is invigorating. The sword fight may be remembered tonight by the intersections’ night goers but won’t be known to the coffee vendors and the morning rush of school children and mothers.

At 4 a.m. a voice – most likely Raul or another bartender on the late night shift – will shout, “last call.” The sounds of smacking swords will stop, excited voices will dissipate and the music will die down until the only sound that can be heard is the locking of a door and the quiet steps of a bartender. Then maybe silence … but only for a moment.  

The author battles Shmuel

The Algonquin Chief Cat Officer: Alice de Almeida

In 1932, my forebear Billy wandered into the enchanting lobby of a hotel best known for hosting notable writers, journalists and actors at its famous round table. Although owner and hotel manager, Frank Case, knew that Billy had no literary reputation or journalistic experience to speak of, he let him reside at the Algonquin. From this moment, a tradition was born, and there has been one of our kind in residence ever since.

In 2019, I sit in an office upstairs at that same hotel on a huge black chair that has a tendency to move around a little on its wheels, especially when I am feeling jumpy. I press send on my one-word email that reads “CATsolutely”, confirming an interview I have later with a journalist. I stare at the giant framed painting of a silver ragdoll cat above the desk, thinking of my own portrait downstairs that has been painted in a similar style. I hope mine doesn’t make me look as fat. The thought is quickly interrupted by the sound of an email coming through with the eager response:

Puurrfect! See you later.

God, I hate journalists, but she gets the bit. To be honest, I am not sure how I feel about these cute cat puns – like catabulous and FURiend – but this is not up to me and while I am being honest I didn’t even send that ‘CATabulous’ email myself because even though I am a very famous cat, I have my limitations. Let’s take this email business for example; my lack of thumbs makes it hard for me to press that dreaded space bar. And so for this and a whole lot else, I have Alice de Almeida. My rescuer, feeder, PR manager and The Algonquin’s official Chief Cat Officer. So even though it is Valentine’s Day and I have cards to respond to and an Instagram story to update, I have agreed to sit down with Savannah, a journalist who is working on a profile on Alice. I was surprised by the request. Usually, journalists visit the hotel to get a chance to sit where their heroes did, at the Algonquin’s famous round table where journalists and writers such as Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross, Edna Ferber, and Alexander Woollcott met for lunch everyday in the early 20s. And if not for this, they come to write about me, The Algonquin’s world-famous cat. You see ‘Street cat against all odds makes it in the big city’ has a better ring to it than ‘That person who looks after the cat’. But Savannah wanted the latter story and so I decided to oblige because Alice is good to me.

She has been looking after me since I arrived here, a shabby orange tabby from the Long Island streets. Originally Alice came to the Algonquin as an Administrative Assistant. She was a couple days into the job when the general manager, and Hotel Impossible host, Anthony Melchiorri, told her she would have to answer the previous cat Matilda’s emails. Alice tells me she responded to Melchiorri with a simple ‘yay’. Yeah, that’s the whole story, I mean this is the hotel where Harold Ross spoke about starting the New Yorker, and Alice responds with, ‘yay’ … riveting material I tell you.

I – Hamlet VIII – on the other hand, have a story to tell. I grew up in a feral cat colony on the streets of Long Island. There were a lot of us on the streets, and so we were in constant competition for food and shelter. Avoiding humans – who saw our type as a growing problem and in need of elimination – was a big part of our day-today survival. I ran into some trouble with the humans once, they trapped and neutered me, and before setting me loose again, clipped my one ear. They said it was to show potential caretakers that I was neutered, but I know it was to make sure I would never forget who controlled me out there. After this, I knew I wanted a better life, and so I made sure to stay close to a place I later learned was called a pet shelter. These places seemed to have a lot of animals that were in control of the humans, and so I hung around learning this art. My determination and natural talent got me discovered pretty quickly after this. I was signed by the shelter and they later called Alice who was in search for the new Algonquin king. The rest is history.

I am hanging around the reception pushing against the legs of the hotel staff making sure I give them equal attention when Savannah walks into the hotel. She looks anxious, and out of place but lightens up quickly, clearly enchanted by the hotel lobby, and a large painting of the famous ‘Round Table’ members. Typical. Even though I can’t take full responsibility for the lobby, it is my territory. I even have a tree house right on the front desk. Alice felt we needed more vertical space so she got the Algonquin to agree to a specially designed tree house that replicates the lobby. The tree has three levels of perching space built around it, a marble house at the base lined with Algonquin carpeting. The house looks like it has been here since Billy was around. I have a sign right in front the marble entrance that reads, ‘shh, please do not disturb’ but of course people always do.

I jump onto the front desk to make my presence known. I was going to let my hotel staff do the preliminary introductions before I take over but Savannah reaches over the desk to put her big hand on my head to give it a quick rub. This really should shock me more, but humans are always breaking appropriate social boundaries. It is more the baby voices she uses to address me that make me cringe; I mean I wasn’t expecting a Dorothy Parker but I thought we could keep some literary repertoire. I make the decision to make this interview quick, but then Savannah asks the front desk for Alice and as I am about to interject to say I can take it from here Alice walks in and I realize Savannah has not even come here to speak to me.

Now they move to the dining area – a spot I know I am not allowed – so I sit on a lobby luggage cart keeping my eye on Alice to make sure she doesn’t go too far off the PR script. It’s Valentine's Day and Alice has dressed to theme, wearing a red blouse, a red flowery patterned scarf and long red nails in addition to her usual loose but professional looking black pants, blazer and square glasses that rest on the middle of her nose. I hear her tell Savannah, that she can tell it’s Valentine’s Day because someone actually held a door open for her this morning. God, this is going to go worse than I thought.

But to my shock Savannah seems to find Alice’s answers riveting, quickly scribbling down notes. Alice tells her how she has been working in the hotel industry all her life, and that she grew up in the Bronx. Straight out of school, Alice got her first hotel job. It was here that one of her managers told her that she is either going to love it or hate it and if she loves it, she has to realize that most hotel people have a little screw loose somewhere, “and it fit!” Alice says. I love my Alice, but I tend to agree about the screw loose thing, especially when she tries to make me sit before I take my treat.

Finally – clearly bored of each other – Alice and Savannah look up at me. Alice, thinking I am in search of a treat, comes towards me calling me king, hammy, ham or could it have been baba? The nicknames come often and are continuously changing. This is probably why people around here call her the crazy cat lady, this or maybe because she gets really angry when people don’t look after me properly when she isn’t around. I cannot fully be blamed for getting her this title though; she was definitely a crazy cat lady before my time. Alice has her own cats back home, three indoor and many feral garden cats, and she goes on about them like they are famous. I have never been to her house to see them, but the last cat Matilda III stayed there for a while when our palace was closed for renovations and she confirmed there was nothing special about these cats.

Finally while watching me spread myself across the front desk they get back to my story. After leaving the shelter with Alice, I arrived at the Algonquin to start my training. I was in line to take over from Matilda III. There have been three Matildas and eight Hamlets, including me, and of course the original Billy at the hotel. The first Hamlet was named after a loyal Algonquin guest and actor John Barrymore whose famous role was Shakespeare's Hamlet. Alice tells Savannah how I lived upstairs, while Matilda stayed a while longer to teach me the ropes. I think Alice is saying this to make Matilda look better now that she has passed, but let me be clear, Matilda did not teach me shit. I sat upstairs in the office while she lay around the lobby until one day they took her away and a trainer came in to give me the real training.

Although every Algonquin cat has been well known, Matilda III was said to be the most loved. She even had a book written about her. Of course, this changed when I came around. I was the first tabby cat from Long Island, and so I brought some real color to the legacy, and this made me even more beloved. I used to get two or three emails a day, but since my presence on social media, I get fewer because my fans can now communicate with me through other platforms. I ask Alice to take photos of me on the job, but she only has an old flip phone and therefore has to get the other staff to help her out, which is a little embarrassing. She does the uploading herself though and helps me with the captions. I don’t feel bad about making her caption my photos; she loves writing and this allows her to be creative. Some of the best pieces of literature were drafted in these walls, and I feel like Instagram captions like ‘Wait fur it’ and ‘Pawsing to take a nap’ should be ranked right up there with them.

I now have 13 599 Facebook followers and 3537 on Instagram. Honestly, I think I would have more, if Alice were more selective about the pictures she posts of me, and if she spent a little care selecting the right filters. I get gifts like stuffed teddy bears and portraits that all resemble me, as well as letters and postcards from around the world. My favorite gift has been the Bonito Flakes from a lovely man from Japan. Alice, being the sentimental one, liked the request we got from a grandmother asking me to contact her granddaughter on her birthday. I prefer to communicate through social media but oblige because Alice asked and she is the one who feeds me in the morning.

Savannah and Alice go sit back down as they speak about Alice’s many pets. “My mother liked cats, my father loved dogs, so I had Parakeets”, I hear Alice say for the thousandth time. This is her go-to story with hotel guests; she thinks that bit is hilarious. I know Alice prefers cats now though; she has had cats since 1992. Alice likes to say that dog people are the ‘Mickey Mouses’, and cat people are the ‘Bugs Bunnies’ of life because they are quirkier. I am not sure exactly what that means, but I do agree that cat people must be way more interesting.

I had to share the hotel with some show dogs and worse show dog people a couple of weeks ago. The dogs were competing at the Westminster Dog Show. They make up some of our regular guests each year, and all stay in the rooms with their humans. The first year the dogs came to stay, Alice made a big fuss about getting a dog in here beforehand to make sure I would play nice with the important guests. I couldn’t care less about the dogs though; it was their annoying owners who kept fussing around them that pissed me off. We get a lot of animals in here; the Algonquin is known for being pet-friendly. Just yesterday, Alice organized an Algonquin visit for my cat friend Pip the famous Beach Cat.

It’s tough to admit, but my popularity with guests and the attention I get from media around the world isn't only because of my charming and chill personality. The rejuvenated interest in the Algonquin cat legacy instead has a lot to do with Alice. If Savannah would pay me any attention this is the kind of thing I had practiced telling her for her profile on Alice. Pet journalist, author and my friend Sandy Robins, believes that even though the hotel has had a cat since the 1920s, they owe a lot to Alice for reviving the status of the Algonquin Cat. Sandy says that Alice recognized the marketing role a famous cat can play for the publicity of the hotel as well as realized the value of having a pet-friendly image, which appeals to the now growing crowd of animal lovers. Sandy sometimes forgets that I am the content and therefore the influencer in this duo but I do agree: Alice and I make a powerful team. I don’t like to deal with people in real life too often so I leave the business side to Alice while I focus on my online image. I would say I am up there with some of the big pet influencer names. So far we have Merrick Pet foods sponsoring us, but I am sure there are more sponsors in the works.

It’s no Buzzfeed but in 2015 – before my time – Forbes did a piece on Matilda III and valued her at an estimate of $1 Million worth of exposure for the hotel that year. It’s not all about Matilda though, Alice says after the children’s book, Hamlet: The Algonquin Cat by Leslie Martini, my social media presence and the events I host, I may even be worth more these days. I don’t get out of my own hotel much but Sandy says many hotels have realized the worth of animal mascots. Although I like to think of myself as one of a kind, I will acknowledge this is a trend growing in leaps and bounds.

Alice hasn’t only added value to the hotel; she’s also had a positive impact by promoting shelter animals and raising money for strays like me in the city. Because of my background, this is a very important issue to me, plus it doesn’t hurt to promote this kind of thing on my social media. Every year, Alice plans a birthday party for me, in the form of a pet fashion show to raise money for animal shelters in New York City.

The fashion show happens at the beginning of August each year to celebrate both the Matildas’ birthdays as well as mine. I tend to hang back by the lobby and watch from my tree house. I feel bad for well-known pet fashion designer Ada Nieves who designs an outfit for me each year. I can only bear to wear it for a couple of minutes, mostly just long enough for a photo op. Last year she designed a Shakespearean Hamlet coat for me, but I try to avoid the catwalk, especially when Alice starts to call all the cats MEWdels instead of models. The event raises about $10 000 each year, for 150 shelters in the New York area. This makes me proud; it is important to give back to my community, I will always have my little clipped ear to remind me of the streets, no matter how famous I become.

Although fame can sometimes be hard, I think it is especially hard on Alice when I am criticized. She says it is the hardest part of the job, dealing with negative emails and press. Alice is recounting an email I received a while ago, “you know, I agree, Hamlet is a little overweight, but you don’t need to tell me he is ... FAT.” She was really angry about that one. I wasn’t a fan either, but can we blame my follower, I have told Alice a million times not to post pictures of my bad angles. Alice also hates dealing with emails telling her that a hotel is no place for a cat to live, that it is cat abuse having me in the constant spotlight. I always laugh at this one, because clearly, these critics have never been to Long Island. I mean are they kidding, I live in Midtown Manhattan now, like hell I am going back.

I doubt my opinions will make it into Savannah’s piece though, because she and Alice are just yapping on about the time Alice moved to Brazil. They haven’t looked my way in a while, and I can see Savannah is getting ready to leave. I am about to lose my patience and then I hear Alice say that I -Hamlet VIII – will be her last cat because I deserve to be at the Algonquin for a long time. So maybe Alice has some interesting things to say after all.

Alice hopes to retire before I do, and I have to admit it will be hard to see her go. She was the one who chose me, took me out of the Bideawee Animal Shelter and brought me here. She found Matilda III too at the North Shore Animal League. She is our rescuer, our feeder, our PR manager, our Algonquin Cat Officer.