A Little Bit Of New York History,

at 644 Broadway in Greenwich Village, to be precise, 

which in 1894 was the home of Snooperkatz, the Mischievous Silk Thread Shop Cat at Broadway and Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, We know this because Snooperkatz went missing, Christian Gudebrod ran the Gudebrod Brothers SilkCompany, Inc. at the building now called Bleecker Tower in New York City, Gudebrod was particularly fond of Snooperkatz who went missing in May of 1894, Gudebrod posted flyers offering a one dollar reward for the return of his lost cat, the circular read: “Gray Maltese cat. Collar bearing his name, Snooperkatz. A reward of $1 will be paid for his safe return to Gudebrod Bros., 644 Broadway.” Snooperkatz apparently was in the habit of visiting a black female cat across the street at the Bleecker Street Savings Bank, so Christian was hoping someone would find his cat there and return it to him for the $1 reward,

 Snooperkatz made his home in Christian Gudebrod’s offices at 644 Broadway and Bleecker Street (on the far right in this 1899 illustration), an eight-story, Lake Superior orange sandstone and Columbus brick building designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch in 1891 for the Manhattan Savings Institution, but there was a problem, no one found Snooperkatz, as The Sun reported on May 11, 1894, within just a few days, the large building was overrun with cats, “raising their voices in a stream of profanity that is dark, deep and strong.” There were “black cats, white cats, gray cats, yellow cats, mottled cats, tomcats, pussy cats, tailless cats, earless cats, whiskerless cats, cats of high caste, and cats of absolutely no caste at all!” as You can imagine with no reward the cats were just left at the office of Christian! from the article,

Two weeks after Snooperkatz disappeared, Christian sat down with a reporter from The Sun to talk about his favourite cat. “Oh sir, unless you are a lover of cats you can have no idea how I feel about Snooperkatz. There was only one cat in the world like him, and he’s now dead.” “Have a cigar?” he asked the reporter as he tossed a paperweight at yet another stray cat while telling the man how much he adored his lost Snooperkatz, according to Christian, to illustrate the cats intelligence, He learned how to steal the elevator boy’s lunch, according to Christian, he would climb up the screen door of the elevator and push the button. As soon as he saw the elevator coming up he would run down the stairs and take the boy’s lunch.

for more on the story of Snooperkatz, have a look here, a nice easy read about the cat and the history of 644 Broadway with a coffee.