Tag: dogs

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Bowery Boys Bookshelf

The menagerie of New York: A colorful look at the ‘Wild City’

While traipsing through Red Hook a couple months ago, I happened upon a family of raccoons camped out underneath a pick-up truck.

New York City is actually a bit of a zoo — if you open your mind to what constitutes a star attraction. Sure, we don’t have lions wandering around (thankfully), but what zoo creature is more famous than Pizza Rat?

WILD CITY
A Brief History of New York City in 40 Animals
Written by Thomas Hynes
Illustrated by Kath Nash

In Wild City, author Thomas Hynes and illustrator Kath Nash reveal an urban environment more exotic and thriving than any city of concrete and steel has right to be.

The creators focus on forty creatures — from the ancient mastodon whose skeletal remains presumably linger underfoot to the clever starlings who have bullied their way into the American habitat (to the detriment of other birds).

New York really became a metropolis because of two particular living creatures — beavers and oysters. But one can hardly deny that horses may be the most important animals to New York City history, for better or worse.

Seals make the list! Picture courtesy NY Harbor Nature. Visit their website for more information about the plight of seals in the harbor.

In a sense, a city with underground tunnels, green parks and a skyline with a million perches seems suited for particular kinds of beasts. Even those from urban legend like the sewer alligators (which, it turns out, aren’t mythical after all).

And when nature itself doesn’t provide, the need for companionship invites them — from dogs and cats to more, um, unconventional pets (such as Su Lin, the first panda to ever come to the United States).

Yes there are shipworms and mosquitoes and bed bugs here too — yikes! Luckily Wild City is such a calming, enjoyable read — and so beautifully illustrated — that you might be a little less inclined to swipe away that annoying insect next time you’re in the park.

And I think I’m going to go look for those raccoons again.

Geese are also really into Red Hook.
Categories
Health and Living

America’s first free animal hospital, at 350 Lafayette Street, with a roof garden for sick horses

The first official patient of the Free Hospital and Dispensary for Animals at 350 Lafayette Street, under the care of veterinarian Bruce Blair.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was formed in 1866 by philanthropist Henry Bergh.  Eight years later, he helped co-found the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Yes, animals came first.  Animals were not only better understood than children, they were instrumental to the daily flow of the city.  Almost every vehicle on the street was horse powered.  The skills of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine were adequately developed in a country that was mostly rural, while the psyches of the human adolescent were only just being appreciated.

At right: Mrs. N.H. Barnes and her dog Mousie, circa 1910-1915, courtesy Library of Congress

And don’t underestimate the power of the upper crust and their favorite luxury items — exotic pets.  New Yorkers were perhaps empathizing with animals, if not exactly knowing how to treat them.

After all, the menagerie of the Central Park Zoo was created from the bad decisions made by wealthy people, regretting their decisions in bringing unusual animals into their homes.  In 1907, New York even experienced a bit of a monkey craze, with dozens of small primates becoming adorably mischievous fashion accessories.

Animal rights became an interesting tangent of New York’s progressive movement, a focus on the well-being of four-legged creatures that culminated, one century ago this week, in the opening of the Free Hospital and Dispensary for Animals (at 350 Lafayette Street), the first institution of its type in the United States.

Like many progressive institutions of the day, the animal hospital was a life’s ambition for a wealthy socialite — in this case, Ellin Prince Speyer, the wife of railroad banker James Speyer (founder of the Provident Loan Society.)

Above: Work horses compete in an obstacle course in Union Square, during the Work Horse Parade of 1908. Picture courtesy Shorpy

Speyer formed a Women’s League of the ASPCA in 1906 and quickly organized public displays that would bring attention to the plight of work animals.  The following year, on Memorial Day, she organized the first annual Work Horse Parade with contests and exhibitions, all in an effort to bring attention to the condition of horses on city streets.

People were given prizes if their old horses were in good shape!  “An effort has been made to induce the peddlers and hucksters of the city to enter,” said the New York Times.

The Women’s League provided watering station for horses during the summer and even free “horse vacations,” renting a farm in upstate New York for the care of older animals.

But the League was concerned with the health of all animals, not just horses.  (Indeed, the New York Sun takes note of Mrs. Speyer’s favorite animal — “the life saving Japanese spaniel Trixie.”)  Members visited area schools to lecture on the proper care and feeding of pets, speaking to the young owners of dogs, cats and birds.

They believed that beneficence to the animal kingdom was a signal to a healthy, moral household.  “You don’t find wife-beaters who are fond of pets and lovers of animals,” said the League in an editorial in 1912.

This sophisticated devotion to animal care was considered truly unique. For instance, when an impressive animal clinic opened at Cornell University in 1911, the New York Times replied with the headline, “Where Sick Animals Are Cared For Like Humans.“

From the New York Times, February 1913

Speyer opened a small animal clinic in New York that same year, but it was woefully inadequate to the needs of New York’s animal population.  So, with the help of lavish benefits and donations from other wealthy families (including many of her banking friends), the Women’s League raised $50,000 and opened up a proper animal hospital on March 14, 1914, the first animal hospital of its kind in the United States.

The five-story building is still there today.  New York’s first free animal hospital could accommodate fifty horses and 150 cats and dogs. “There are also operating rooms where every modern appliance for animal surgery is at hand.” [source]

Horses were mostly kept and operated upon on the second floor.  But a rooftop garden accommodated the most sickly horses in need of fresh air and sunshine, lifted there by a large, state-of-the-art elevator.  I suppose it was also used for patients from the third floor — dogs, cats and birds.  Autopsies were also conducted on the roof, and dead animals were disposed of in a basement incinerator. (The Times actually calls it ‘the death room.’)

Perhaps most curious of all — an entire floor was given over to a new apartment for the hospital’s lead veterinarian Dr. Bruce Blair (pictured at top) and his new bride.

On its opening on March 14, Speyer showed the waiting dignitaries a mysterious envelope which contained a $1,000 bill, anonymously donated for the purposes of buying the hospital’s first animal ambulance.

Perhaps the hospital’s most famous patient on opening day was not not a horse, but a green parrot named Abe, who was a bit of a minor film star in 1914.  I believe this was the star of the 1914 Oliver Hardy film The Green Alarm.

Today, the Animal Medical Center  traces its lineage to this first animal hospital and to Speyer’s organization.  It moved to its current location on the Upper East Side in 1962. (You can read more about their history here.)

Here’s the building as it looks today:

Categories
Amusements and Thrills

Don the Talking Dog, German vaudeville sensation, saves a drowning man in Brighton Beach

There once was a talking dog named Don.

One hundred years ago today, he saved a man from drowning in Brighton Beach.  Don shouted or barked the word ‘Help!’ then ran to the waters to save him.

But perhaps I should explain.

In December 1910, the New York Times ran a startling announcement that a dog in Germany had been discovered that could pronounce certain human words.  The setter from Theerhutte was owned by an eastern German gamekeeper and possessed several human qualities, not the least of which was the name Don.  The dog had beautiful eyes “sometimes almost human in their expression” and was an “uncommonly intelligent animal,” according to the Times.

Naturally, Don spoke only in German.  Being a dog, among the six words at his command were ‘haben’ (want), ‘kuchen’ (cakes) and ‘hunger’.  You had to use your imagination, of course, but one could detect a slight difference in Don’s barks that could be interpreted as separate words.

Despite some understandable cynics out there, Don was on his way to a career in the theater.

Above: Hammerstein’s rooftop garden at the Victoria Theatre in Times Square, the stage where Don the Talking Dog made his debut.

Generally speaking, dogs were a definite novelty among the stars of the vaudeville stage. A troupe of animals called Wormwood’s Dogs and Monkeys held court on the stages of Coney Island in the 1910s.  More renowned, perhaps, was the cross-dressing pooch Uno the Mind Reading Dog , who wowed theater crowds in 1910.

But the highest paid dog act up to that time was Dan the Drunken Dog, an animal who emulated the wobbling demeanor of an alcoholic, to the delight of audiences at the Oscar Hammerstein‘s Victoria Theater rooftop garden in Times Square.

None of these would reach the fame of Don the Talking Dog.  Hammerstein was so sure New Yorkers would love him that he posted a $50,000 bond to have Don brought to the United States.  The dog arrived in America on July 9, 1912 aboard the German steamship Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm, “absolutely refus[ing] to be interviewed at the pier, and indeed, had been too seasick on the way over to converse with anybody.” [source]

At right: On the bill with Harry Houdini, from the New York Sun, July 21, 1912

A few weeks later, the German canine would make his debut on Hammerstein’s rooftop garden, alongside master of ceremonies Loney Haskell.  “The trained growls which emanate from his throat can readily be mistaken for words,” claimed a Variety reviewer.  “On the roof the audience, skeptical in the first place, became more so at Loney’s [introduction], but after the dog had made its first try they became interested and later enthusiastic.”

His salary was allegedly $1,000 a week, paid, of course, to his owner Martha Haberland.  Like many temperamental divas, Don disliked the roof garden lifestyle due to the sounds of traffic, preferring to perform inside theaters, not atop them. But he was huge success that year, touring to other Hammerstein stages before returning to Germany that fall, a bonafide American star.

Above: The Hotel Shelburne in Brighton Beach, where Don the Talking Dog saved a man from drowning

Don returned to Hammerstein’s Times Square stage in 1913, this time performing alongside the likes of young comedian Sophie Tucker.  Later that summer he arrived in Brighton Beach to delight Brooklyn audiences.  It was here, on one of his afternoons off, that he rescued a drowning man with his famed ubiquitous voice.

The man was a waiter for the Hotel Shelburne who was actually out walking Don that afternoon.  The man jumped in the water for a swim and instantly lost his footing.  Don saw the man flailing in desperation in the ocean foam and, then, according to the New York Sun, allegedly unfurled one of his new words — “Help!” — startling everyone on the beach.*  The performer then swam over to the drowning man and began pulling on his bathing suit.

A passing policeman leaped into the water on his horse to rescue Don and the waiter.  This whole scene — dog, horse, waiter, policeman — was in turn rescued by three lifeguards in a boat. [source]

This was perhaps Don’s shining moment. He shortly retired from the stage and finally died in 1915 back in Germany.  His final words, according the Evening World:  “Say goodbye to my old pal Loney Haskell.”

*The Tribune reports the same event but does not mention this magical ‘Help!’

Top pic courtesy New York Evening World. Bottom two images courtesy Museum of the City of New York.