Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the New Yorkers Podcast, a podcast by New York City Cop. I'm your host, Kelly Kopp. I'm a published photographer, New York City tour business owner, content creator, podcaster, and above all else, a New Yorker.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Ladies and gentlemen, the next Brooklyn found
[00:00:18] Speaker A: train in Mount Biden.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
This is times square on second street.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: With me today, everybody. I have Dan Ramada. He is the founder of Bodega Cats of New York, author of the book, and started a campaign to pass the first legislation in New York City surrounding Bodega Cats. But above all else, Dan is a New Yorker. Hey, Dan. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today, my friend?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Great. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Awesome.
How was the drive from Staten island today?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: You know, not too bad. I figured with everything going on in the city right now after the Knicks won, it'd be a little chaotic, but it was actually pretty calm.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: The Knicks won last night. Hence the Knicks shirt right here.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: What did you do for the Knicks game?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: I stayed at home with my cats. Yeah? Oh, yeah, Yeah, I stayed at home. Yeah. My girlfriend's a dog sitter, so she overnight sometimes, so she was out. I had the house to myself, ordered Chinese food, watching.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Nice. Nice.
Yeah. I was in the West Village with all those people that, you know, and it was fun. I had a really good time. Yeah.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I wish I was there with you in spirit.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Oh, that would have been nice. Yeah.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about your. Little bit about yourself, you know, where were you born? Were you. You know, give us some history about you.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So born in Fort Greene? Brooklyn.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Spent most of my life in Staten island, and then I kind of went back and forth between.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: How did you get to Staten Island?
[00:02:04] Speaker B: I had a friend that lived there. He was looking for a roommate, and he took me in as his roommate. So I spent a couple of years out there, and then I moved back to Fort Greene, and then now I'm back in Staten island, so I kind of bounced between the two. But being in Brooklyn and being in Fort Greene is really where I got, like, my appreciation for.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: And does your family live in Fort Greene or.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: No, My mom retired, moved to Mexico, bought a ranch. She's doing great. My dad lives in. In Florida, in Tampa.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Wow. Wait, your mom moved to Mexico?
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah, she's.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: That's pretty cool.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: She's Mexican. 100% Mexican. Spanish lineage. Her blood is as Spaniard as it can get, but she was born and Raised in Mexico, so I'm half Mexican, half Italian.
Spanish and Argentinian, so quite the mix.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: So I should have been a soccer player is when I tell people all the time.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: So how do you speak? I assume you speak Spanish fluently.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Fluently, yeah. I grew up speaking Spanish, dude.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: And that's the show today, everybody.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's very cool. And then your dad's in Tampa.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: My dad's in Tampa with my sister. She lives in Tampa as well.
And she's got three wonderful cats, too. She's cat like me.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I like that you're bringing the cats up because, you know, going to lead into more in the conversation here. Yeah, I love. I love Tampa. I've been there many times. I grew up in. Well, I spent a lot of. I spent like 30 years in Orlando, right next door. Yep. So I've driven down I4 to Tampa many times.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: How many times you've been to Disney?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Well, probably over a thousand.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Get out.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: Because I worked at Disney.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: No way.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, not. I worked on Disney property. You know, I was a manager at Planet Hollywood. I was a server first, and I became a manager at the Planet Hollywood in Orlando. Wow. And then, you know, we're on Disney property, so I was there for seven or eight years.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: You know, we got to go to the park for free and everything. It was. It was fun.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: What a perk.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Good times, you know, Good old Disney.
So you grew up basically in Staten island, right? And. And what was your neighborhood like?
[00:04:05] Speaker B: So I grew up in the same neighborhood as the Wu Tang Clan. So, yeah, I was down the block from, like, a lot of the. The parts of that neighborhood that they rap about in their songs.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: What a Staten island is that? So it's called Park Hill, like, geographically. Where would it be?
[00:04:19] Speaker B: Actually, it's funny. Almost like dead center. And then if you go a little bit north of dead center, that's pretty much the Park Hill area. There's the Park Hill projects and Broad street, which it's not as, like, gritty as it used to be. It's a pretty nice neighborhood now. Great food out there, but it's.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Show me it. I don't know anything about Staten Island. I have a tour business, too. People probably love to see that.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: I have a tour business, too.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you do? I do.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: What is your tour business?
[00:04:46] Speaker B: People know Cats about Town tours. Have you heard of it?
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Oh, yes. I duh. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: The walking tour. It's the history of Cats.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Well, tell us all about it then. Sure. Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: So it's called Cats About Town Tours, and we cover the history.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Beautiful segue.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that, even. Yeah, but go ahead.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So Cats About Town Tours is a. It's a historical walking tour, and it covers the history of cats in New York city around the 1800s. 1900s. We talk about really, like, famous New York City, like, cat institutions.
And it's my co founder, Peggy Gavin. She's an actual cat historian, and she's written books on dogs and cats from the 1800s and 1900s that, like, contributed to, like, New York City's, you know, to our. To our culture. There's this one cat that she tells on the tour. We have a tour that we do in Brooklyn Heights, and there was a cat there named Jerry Fox, and Jerry Fox saved.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: The cat's name is Jerry Fox.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Exactly. First and last name. Yeah. So he saved Brooklyn Borough hall from burning down one time. Yeah. There was a judge, I think this is right at the beginning of the 1900s, probably 1901, 1902. And there was a judge in Brooklyn Borough hall, right on Court street in Brooklyn Heights. He was smoking a cigar. He had put it down on a stack of papers.
They caught flames or they started smoking.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: And I think the judge had, like, nodded off. He had, like, fallen asleep. And Jerry Foxx was in that area. He's going up and down the hallways.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Pretty good name.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: And he was an iconic, like, figure for Brooklyn Borough Hall. He was like the resident cat. He was like the kind of cat. He was a tuxedo cat. Beautiful tuxedo cat.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: So the black with white ear, white chest.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: He had some white markings on his face. There's a photo of him floating around.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: And so he. He caught wind of what was going on. He started smelling the smoke, and somehow he alerted the folks on that floor. He kind of started meowing it regularly, and he was acting a bit strange, and he was able to get people to notice the smoke billowing out of the judge's office. And they were able to put it out, but without him, they probably. That office was full of papers and books and stuff and, you know, tons of wood that that office wouldn't have went up. And he saved Brooklyn Borough Hall. Might have saved a couple lives as well. So we've got this petition going now to commemorate Jerry Fox with a plaque Right. On Brooklyn Borough Hall. Right on the outside of it.
So. Yeah, find out more.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Let me help if I can with.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Please, people.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Can whatever people need to do.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: That'd be awesome.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really cool.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a really cool story.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: What year do you know about what years this was? I don't know if you said.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah, probably like.
I think it's 1901. 1902. Right, right in that area.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: I was just a kid.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Yeah.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Wow, that's a fascinating story.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Do we tell stories like that? We stop in front of landmarks. Hemingway's house. We stop in front of his house and yeah, there's a couple. Cool.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Tomorrow. I have no idea about it.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: I would love to find.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: I. We do a tour Lower east side and Brooklyn.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Brooklyn Heights, you know, would be really cool is me to record. Do you like snippets and post. You know, do a post.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Oh my God, I would love that.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: You know what I mean?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: That'd be tremendous.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: I think it's such a cool idea.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: You know, I did read a little bit about, you know, I guess that I did read that you had a tour, but for some reason I'm thinking like my brain, like the tours that I do around the city.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Just your typical whatever. But I do photos and stuff too, but gosh. Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's such a great idea. Tell us. Can you tell us another story? Historical stories? I'd love to hear.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Sure. So when they. When they had built the Brooklyn Bridge. So right after they completed the Brooklyn Bridge, there was a lot of press, a lot of media covering it. And they. They took this cat. The story goes, it was a stray cat on the Manhattan side. And they had taken this cat and they put it directly in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. And they let go of the cat and the cat crossed from the middle to the Brooklyn side. And he was. This cat was the first living being to ever cross the Brooklyn Bridge. Before people did it, this cat did it. And it was just a stunt. It was a publicity stunt, you know, just to like, you know, snap photos and just make it a feel good story. But yeah, it was a cat that crossed the Brooklyn borough, the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time. First living being to ever cross the Brooklyn Bridge was actually a cat. So what I like to say is like, there's. I think that there's like layers.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: This is fascinating to me. This is such good information. Pretty cool, right? Yeah.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: We realized that there was no like animal related walking tours in New York City. There was really nothing for cat lovers and dog lovers. And we have like a rich animal history. Even like Central park, the Central Park Zoo. It's been around forever.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Great stories out of there as well. Peggy, she knows tons of stor. She fills me in all the time.
But what I always say is, like, there's layers to New York City's history. Like, if you look at Brooklyn Borough hall, it's historical in its own right. It doesn't need a cat layer history, but it has one. If you peel back the layers, there's different types of history. There's also animal history there. There's been a lot of famous New York City cats. Even, like, cats on Broadway. We kind of touch on it on our tours as well. We kind of mention it.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Can you touch on that, too here?
[00:09:44] Speaker B: I don't know the full story.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Well, just a little. Then. That'll be a teaser, then. That'll get people to.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: It's more of, like, an anecdote than it is anything. Like, we don't stop in front of, like, Broadway or anything. The closest tour we have is, like, the Lower east side tour. But we mentioned how, like, Cats was, like, you know, a really significant part of, like, New York City's culture. Like, huge.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: You know, one of the only plays I've never seen.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I've never seen it either. Yeah. Yeah, it's a bummer.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: And Cat guy's never seen Cats.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: I know. Edit that, please.
There goes my credibility.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Oh, we all do that.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: The book tanks.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: But no, we mention it. We also mentioned, like, the two cats in front of the.
The Bryant Park New York Public Library. They have names, and I forget what their names are.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Oh, I. I do know them.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Do you?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: I do.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: What is it?
[00:10:27] Speaker A: It's patience.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: And fortitude. Yep. And then I know that patience is on the left and fortitude is on the right because Fortitude is on 42nd.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Whoa. I did not know that.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Wow. Fortitude.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: I never knew that I would be teaching someone this brilliant this little bit of information.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Actually, on my tours, I tell people that I'm like. And people are like, oh, I know that. You know, but. Yeah, it's interesting.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: That's. I wonder if Peggy knew that.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I just learned that recently, too, so I don't feel like I'm all this plethora of information. I just. I just learned it. We're adding it to probably within the last year.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Okay, cool. I learned it today. I was today years old today.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: How old were you today? Years old. Gosh. I mean, I just. I think, you know, that, you know, when I saw your email, you know, and J2 you know, bodega cats, I mean, how can we not have you on to talk about the heart of New York City? Basically, these bodega cats.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: You know. So you have a book coming out.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: And so let's talk all about it, you know, inform our friends about your book and, you know, information about the bodega cast. I have some questions, too, so. Yeah, yeah, let me.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: I'll start at the top. So. Yeah, so. So I should, like, kind of tease us a little bit. I should tell you a little bit about how, like, we started Bodega Cats of New York. So it was just an Instagram account. We never expected it to be a project or to be, like, you know, like an archive or anything or a book. That was the last thing we were thinking it would ever be. And when I say we, it was. It was just me. Like, it was. I was the first guy.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Like, it was just my Instagram account. And the idea there was I was going to post photos from pronouns.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Are we, we.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, exactly.
So I was just going to post photos of my neighborhood, like, bodega Cats in Fort Greene, right off, like, Myrtle Avenue. There was my. My cat named Luna, and she was my neighborhood bodega cat. So I started snapping photos of her, and I found other bodega cats. And this is, like, right around Covid. Like, this is 2020, like, peak Covid, where everything in New York City was shut down, but bodegas stayed open. Right. So, like, shout out to bodega.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Heck yeah. I agree.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Cats were, you know, on the clock as well, so I had a chance.
Slow down.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Cats around the clock.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they had clocked in.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's true. Yeah.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: And it was the first time to, like, I think the city had slowed down enough for me to, like, notice things that I hadn't typically noticed, like a bodega cat. I had always seen bodega cats my whole life. And any New Yorker has bodega cat stories. But, like, I never really appreciated them. I never really looked at them.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: And, like, such a good point. I know exactly what you mean. You had more time to hang out at the bodegas and busy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: And a lot of us, like, we don't really ever get that chance, you know? But I always. I've always thought about, like, since that moment, Bodega Cats has, like, a Zen moment for folks. Like, no matter how big of a rush you are, if you see a bodega cat, like, you're going to stop. You're going to.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: They really came to the forefront during the pandemic, you know. Yeah. But go ahead. I'm sorry.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's okay. And so I started the Instagram account selfishly, just to post my own photos of my. My own neighborhood cats. I just thought people might want to see my cats. And it stayed that way for about a year, and we started getting, like, maybe a couple hundred followers, and it wasn't a major account or anything. And then people started sending me photos of their neighborhood Bodega cats, to which I was like, no. Like, this is my project. Like, start your own account. Like, whatever. But I had. I had gotten the Bodega Cats of New York Instagram account, which is now defunct. Unfortunately, Meta shut down that account. They said we violated an ad policy. We never ran an ad. But anyway, what legal battle, Two lawyers, lawsuits, the whole nine. We never heard back from Meta. So we. New York Bodega Cats is the new Instagram account.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: You know what? Because I was. I remember the Bodega Cats Instagram, and I.
Earlier when you walked in, I was thinking, I haven't seen that in a while. Yeah, that's why.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we had.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: I'm sorry to hear that. That sucks.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: That was a blow. Yeah, that was a blow. I considered just shutting it down, but then I was like, you know what? Like, my dad gave me good advice, and he was like, just start it over. You did it. Once you start the Instagram, post the photos, it was pretty big.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: How Many?
[00:14:28] Speaker B: We had 55,000 followers.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a pretty big one.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it was growing fast.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a blow. That was a blow.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I had one of my pages stolen one time, but long story short, somehow I don't know how I got it back, but I'm even scared to say that and jinxed it. And, you know, because we both know what it's like to have our, you know, our pride and joy pages taken away that we worked so hard on. Yeah. So, people, it's tough, but go ahead. I'm sorry.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: But you know what else? Like that Instagram account, we had 1300 and some change, 100 photos. And that was like an archive in and of itself. That was like an archive of user, you know, follower submitted photos that existed on our Instagram account and. And that was wiped out. So we. That really hurt, you know, like, that was the heart of our. Of our. Of our brand.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Right. It's the people's cats.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: You know? Exactly.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: It was a massive contribution.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: People are so proud of, and Then sadly taken away, like. Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Because of. I had, like, picked up on our account. They said that we violated an ad policy, which we didn't run ads.
So. Yeah, long story short, we never got the account back. I don't think we will. So we started up a new one and it's doing okay right now, thankfully. But, yeah. So people started sending over photos of their neighborhood bodega cats, to which I, like, resisted.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: I was kind of selfish about it. And then little by little, I started to realize, like, this is no longer my thing. This has become kind of like a. Like a cultural Instagram account. So I started accepting photos and I was reposting pictures that people were sending me. And from there it just grew into a pretty big account. And so that's what it was initially. And we've kind of, like, evolved from there. We've kind of grown. We have a book coming out, like you mentioned. Yeah. Hardcover book, 240 pages. We cover 60 cats.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: That's a big book. Good for you.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah, nine by 11, I think it is. And it's from Quarto Publishing, who's done a lot of really good, great coffee table books in the past.
And I'm not a photographer.
I'm good with my iPhone, but I am.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: So.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Yeah, perfect.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Next book. Next book. Yeah, but I got cats, too.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: That's right. We have a sequel.
So I worked with Gulchi Kilkis. She runs Turkish Street Cats, which is her Instagram account. It's a fantastic.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: I know exactly what you're talking about. She's great.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: She's so.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: And I didn't realize Turkey had, like, crazy amount of cats everywhere. Have you been there?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: I have not. It's on the list.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: It's like, it's a huge part of their culture. Huge everywhere.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: And they're well cared for. People take care of them. They get fed all the time. They get pets all the time. Yeah, yeah. It's massive over there. Japan, too. Japan.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: They love cats. Yeah.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Huge.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: My friends who are from Turkey, you know, that live in New York City here, and there's some business friends of mine, and we had a long conversation about all the cats in Turkey, which I had no clue about. And I was online forever all night that night, watching all the Turkey cats. Yeah, yeah, the turkey cat.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: The Turkey cats.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: That sounded weird.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: It's a meme. That's going to be a meme. Turkey cat, cats.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Okay, but go ahead.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: But, yeah, so. So I. I had been following Gulche's Instagram account for. For a Long time. And I loved her style. I love how she would capture, like, the cat's expressions and stuff. And nothing was ever staged with Gulchi. Like, even when we were shooting for the book, it was always really important for us to not stage anything. Like, she always told me, she's like, just like, be like a fly on the wall. Like, just, like, blend in to, like, the wall, you know, like, just be there. I'll snap the right foot.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Like, how you're like.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Literally, I was up against, like, the chip rack. I was like this. Yeah.
But she was great. She was great to work with. I picked the right photographer for this first book. For this first.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Nice one. It's a good fit.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Totally. Oh, my God. It was so great. And she was so organized. She had the logistics down. We would be visiting 15 bodega cats in one day. And she would have the Google maps. She would have all the cats. We had walking routes. She was so efficient.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: That's a lot of bodegas. In one day.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: We visited a little over 250 bodegas to capture 60 cats that made it to the book. Yeah. Wow. Because not every bodega has a cat. Sometimes they run off, sometimes they're stolen, sometimes they pass away. So we have this running. It's like an Excel sheet with color coded. Was there a cat there? Was there a cat there? But we settled on the final 60 cats, the cats that we really thought told an interesting story. So it's a photography book, first and foremost. And then we tell the story of that cat. Something that I realized was, like, people weren't writing down these cat stories, and they weren't writing down their names. And, you know, these cats, they play an important role.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: They're an institution in New York City in our culture. So I figured, you know, like, we should pay homage to them. We should. We should write down their names and ask the owner about their story and really pay attention.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Speaking of, can you tell us your. Why don't say your favorite. Because they're all your favorites in the book.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Can you tell us some. Some of the stories of a few cats?
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah.
There's three stories that I love telling, so.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll say the first one is Jimmy. He's on.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Jimmy's the cat's name.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Jimmy's the cat's name. Yeah.
And it's funny. We ran into Jimmy by mistake, so Gultray and I, we were. We were going down. I think he's on Second Avenue. We're going down Second Avenue in Manhattan. And we were like. We kind of had our heads in a swivel. We were, like, peeking inside bodegas, like, on the way to the next bodega capital. We kept, like, looking inside of them and stuff. And I'll tell you in a second how you can spot a bodega cat. I've come up with a bit of a system for people who want to come up to come to New York and then find bodega cats. I'll tell you what to look for. I wrote a blog about it, and I think it's.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: I can't wait.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: It's a pretty good guide.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: So we were on our way to a different cat, and then on the left, we saw a little orange tabby cat poking its head out of the door. And we're like, oh, man, there's a cat right here. So we went up to the cat, we started petting it. Golgi started snapping photos. And then I walked in, and it was always like the same kind of speech. Like, I walk up to the bodega owner and I say, hey, I know. I'm Dan. I have an Instagram account right now. We're shooting for a book about bodega cats. We spotted your cat. Would love to ask you a couple questions. So while I'm talking to the owner of the bodega, Goldce snapping away, and I'm trying to explain the project. And, you know, you can imagine, like, bodega owners are typically, like, Arabic speaking or Spanish speaking. So, like, my Spanish came in handy sometimes, except for, like, Dominican, Puerto Rican Spanish, a little bit different than, like, the Spanish that I grew up speaking, you know? But we got by with it. It was. It was not too bad with Spanish speakers, but Arabic owners who, like, I had to explain the project and explain this paper release that you have to sign so that I could take photos on your property, you know, and get permission to, like, snap photos in your private, you know, business. But anyway, so we stopped, we saw Jimmy in the doorway. We walked in, we started talking to the owner, and he told us, like, fantastic stories. And he was telling us that Jimmy nets the store about $400 in additional sales per day. So Jimmy leads to people like me and Golchi seeing the cat.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: The number one sales.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah, seriously. Seriously.
And the owner there was also telling me stories about how he learned a lot from the cat in selling in general, what sales is like. And he said the number one thing that he learned was, first thing you have to do is go to the people. So That's Jimmy in the doorway. You have to go to the people, get the attention, and then after a while, they'll start to come to you. That's kind of what happened with Jimmy. Jimmy's become like a local celebrity.
You don't have to spot him in the doorway anymore. You hear about Jimmy on social media and you go and visit him, and then you might buy something. You might buy some chips or a soda or something.
So that's the story of Jimmy. He's an orange tabby cat. He's in the book. We tell his full story.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: I had an orange tabby cat. So a little affinity towards Jimmy right now.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: I grew up with three of them. Yeah, I was named after a cat. Yeah. So Danny was our childhood cat. It was like a fluffy orange tabby cat, long hair.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: And I was named after that cat. My parents didn't tell me until way later on because they didn't think I could handle it as a kid.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: And then here you are years later.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I gotta.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: I think as, like, foreshadowing or whatever, there's something that happened there, set me up properly.
That's pretty. That's pretty awesome.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: So there's. There's Jimmy. It's a great story. Then there's. I'll tell you the story of Zorro, who kind of earned his reputation. So Zorro is on Avenue A in. In Manhattan as well.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: And Lower East Village. Lower east side.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Lower east side, I guess.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Just get those two confused. Which is which. What leads into what?
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Sure. Where's the ruler? Yeah.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: What's irrelevant to the podcast?
We'll discuss it afterwards.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: For sure.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Get a map out.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: All right, good.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah, do an overlay of a map.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: So then there's Zorro, who really earned his name. So the owner there, it's inside of a. It's like a Mexican restaurant slash bodega. And so they sell.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: What neighborhood is this in?
[00:22:53] Speaker B: This is in Lower east side.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Oh, you said that.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. On Avenue X. Yeah. And I'm sorry.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Yeah, you're.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: That's okay. Happy to repeat.
So the owner there, Ruben, he was telling us. So we walked in, we explained the project, and I was like, do you have any, like, interesting stories about Zorro? And the first one that came to mind almost immediately was there was a health inspector. He walked in, clipboard pen, you know, the lanyard. He walks in from. From the city, and he's there to do the health inspection, which Ruben has gone through a million times. And so he was he was there to do the inspection, and everything passed. Everything was okay. Thank God he saw the cat. Couldn't care less about the cat. You don't always get a summons for having a cat. Depends on the health inspector for having a bad day, you know?
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Exactly. I was just gonna say that.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it depends on their mood. So luckily, this guy was in a good mood, and I think he left in a pretty bad mood. So here's the story.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: So he walks in, he doesn't. He does the inspection, and everything passes. Everything's fine. You know, a. A letter grade for the window there. And he notices the cat. Couldn't care less about the cat. And there's a little spot on the radiator. So when you walk into this bodega on the right side, there's like one of those metal, you know, iconic radiators. And on top of it is, like a cardboard box that Zorro likes to post up in. The radiator's nice and hot, and he posts up.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yep, understandable.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: And so he walks in, the inspector's done with the inspection. He gives, you know, Reuben the paperwork, and he reaches for the door to walk out, and Zorro reaches his claw out and scratches the health inspector elbow to wrist. Leaves a nice mark on his arm. And Reuben kind of gives him, you know, a shoulder shrug. You know, one of these is like a.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: He's a New Yorker.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: What can I do? And then, you know, I. I think the health inspector kind of gave him a, like, you know, come on, man. Like one of those, you know, really, really, like, with this cat.
Doesn't change the letter grade, doesn't give him a summons, walks out. Zorro's reputation is intact. Right. His name is now, like, he's lived up to his name.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that could have really.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: That could have went the other way.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Turned for the worse, for sure. You know, I was going to ask you, too.
I had a question specifically asking about health inspectors and the cats. I mean, how that's a big deal. It could be a big deal, and in this case, it wasn't. But if a food of a health inspector is in a bad mood or just isn't happy and looking for things, I mean, I assume the cat would
[00:25:14] Speaker B: be, you know, they don't like, take the cat or anything, but you can get a nasty summons.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: So they go up to about fifteen hundred dollars for key defenses. They started at about two or three hundred bucks. And repeat offenses, it becomes pretty costly. But something that I always mention is that I think that these Owners have done the math and they figured out that having a bodega cat and sometimes getting a fine is a lot cheaper than hiring exterminators. Then you have poison all over the place.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: I was just gonna say that.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: I was just gonna say, like, you know, I think a health inspector would think, well, at least this. The bodega cat has a benefit because it eliminates Matt's. Matt's mice.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt for short.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I just like to make that. Faster talk. Yeah.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Good move. Good move.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it's because, you know, when this airs, you know, the. The. The. The finals were last night. We won, you know, the Knicks won. So I'm just a little.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Sure. Scattered brain.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: So. But. But yeah, I would think that would be a benefit to you, to a health inspector, you know. Oh. This actually helps keep the.
The bodega safer and cleaner and more hygienic, in a sense, whatever it is. You know what I mean?
[00:26:24] Speaker B: It very much does. Yeah. It's.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: It's that when they lay on the bread and stuff and things like that, they.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Do they make your bread a little.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Caved in, you know, they've.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: In my experience, they moved on to the Doritos.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. They're there. They're. You know, but you got to know where to look. Yeah. So I assume the health inspectors have no issue with that then, too, you know. Yeah.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: You know, where it's a bigger deal is, like, bodegas that serve food. That. That's where it's a big. Yeah, because they, you know, they have, you know, food product out. Which. Which makes sense. I mean, I think New Yorkers would agree, like, we don't want, like, a cat, like, laying on top of our, like, lettuce and tomatoes and stuff.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: You know, so. So. And typically, they don't. Like, a lot of times they do stay out of the food station.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I've never seen one like, on. It's always, like, in the bread area. Like the Doritos on the shelves.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. On top of the ATMs.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Where it's warm.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: But, yeah, the. The. The thing I didn't know going into this project was that bodega cats are illegal technically under city health code.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't. Yeah, I guess it does make sense.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: It does. Yeah. So, like, it basically says you can't have any live animal except for a service animal. Can't have anything. A goldfish cat can't have any. Any type of animal. And then if you do, there's you know, a summons, but it's. It's one of these weird New York Catch 20 Twos where you have to decide between paying for an exterminator and having a bunch of dead rats in your walls.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Or you hire a bodega cat.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Right?
[00:27:42] Speaker B: You get a bodega blaze up. Exactly.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: You know, it's the riff raff out.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: You know, so.
So I wonder if they have kitty litter boxes in the bodegas.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Cat litter boxes? Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: We just worked with a company called La Shore, and they asked us about the legislation. There are. It's a brand. They sell these pretty, like, viral cat beds. But they. They asked us, they sent us an email and they were like, hey, we saw the legislation. How can we get involved? How can we help out today? And I was like, you know, like, I'm not really sure. And then they pitched me this idea of, like, donating cat litter boxes.
Like robot ones that clean themselves.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: So they pitched me this idea of, like, donating, you know, a bunch. And I said, hey, could you donate 10 of these, like, litter boxes to, like, bodega cats? And they did. There was a really cool little campaign. So 10 bodega cats got, like, new cat beds, these robot, like, litter boxes that can clean themselves, which for a bodega owner, like, it's pretty helpful. And I have to scoop cat litter. But yeah, I mean, they have litter boxes, they have a place to sleep.
One thing I will say is, like, not every bodega cat is treated equally. Like, there is definitely abuse that happens and it's terrible. And like, Gulchy and I have seen some, like, sketchy situations, you know, but we work with a lot of cat rescues and we'll get them involved. If we see something, like, truly horrific, like, we'll get them involved.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: And yeah, when they close the bodegas, we'll say 2, 3am Sometimes cats just live there. I guess.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Some do. Some do. There's one cat, actually, I think the same with Zorro, but there's a cat named Tiger on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, and the owner there told me that he takes Tiger home every single night. Yeah, he takes him home. He's like his pet.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: There's another cat in the West Village named Papa who's a beautiful rag doll cat and same thing. Actually, the owner there told me that he bought Papa this bodega cat or this. It wasn't a bodega cat at the time. He bought this cat for his girlfriend, and his girlfriend ended up breaking up with him before he gave her the cat, and he had just, like, bought a bodega. So he's like, all right, well, now this is my cat. This is my bodega cat. So, you know, there's. There's stories like that, but, you know, on the other side, like, there's. There are, like, basement breeders that will breed cats for bodegas, which is a true shame.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: I never even heard of this.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it does happen. It happens a lot. And the unsung heroes and all of this stuff is definitely the cat rescues. Like, before the legislation that I know we'll talk about. But, like, right before the legislation and before the state and the city bill, there was cat rescues, and they still are cat rescues, literally, like, doing the best work possible for bodega cats. They're spaying them, they're neutering them. The money comes out of their pockets. A lot of times, sometimes the city will reimburse, but not always. But, yeah, they're the unsung heroes of all of this. They've been looking after bodega cats since the beginning.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: This is fascinating. I'm glad you're talking to us on the podcast.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Yeah, me too.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: Really? Really Having me. Do you remember the cat that was stolen? It was around the pandemic or after the pandemic. It was all over the news.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Snowy.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: I don't remember the name. I think it was in Brooklyn. Could have been Boca, maybe. Bo. Where?
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Boca, Not Boca Raton, yo.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: I know what you mean.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Yeah. B O K A.
He made it to the papers. Like, that was a really.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: He was literally stolen. Picked off. Picked up off the sidewalk or something.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Do you remember the stories? I do, yeah.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: There's been a few stories like that.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Tell us. Remind me and tell everybody there was
[00:30:56] Speaker B: a cat named Boca.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: I mean, the whole city was just.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Oh, it was an.
People were really upset about that.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Go ahead. Sorry.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Yeah, but, you know, like, that's. That's.
I think that the way I've come to know bodega cats is, like, they've become these kind of community anchors where, like, people in the community, they know their local bodega cat. And Boca and Snowy, who I'll talk about, too, like, these were two really well known cats in their neighborhoods. So when, like, these cats go missing or when they get stolen, you know, like, the neighborhood reacts, and that has,
[00:31:26] Speaker A: like, a ripple effect.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Totally, totally.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: It rippled out to the whole city, but Boca, luckily, Boca was returned. It was a. I think a few weeks that they didn't have the cat, the owner, was heartbroken.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Looking every day at the news, you know, the updates and everything. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. That was a rough one.
And then the cat was luckily returned. There's this really iconic photo of the bodega owner on his knees, welcoming. Yeah, yeah, that's probably who you're thinking of. Yeah, that became. That became a really big deal. But luckily was returned. That cat is now retired.
They have an Instagram account up and moved. Yeah, actually, it's Boca Raton, which is rat's mouth in Spanish.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: How fitting. Yeah. Full circle for Bokeh.
So. And then Snowy was another one. Snowy also got stolen. And I think it was. I think this was, like, an innocent thing. I think that they saw the cat outside, didn't realize it was a bodega cat, picked it up, and it was a Persian cat, I believe. So it was not like a typical tabby that you would see in a. In a bodega, anyway, so. So they took it home, but they had surveillance of the guy picking up the. The cat and taking it. And I think it was the guy's friend had reached out to the bodega owner to be like, hey, my friend took it. It was a mistake. Please don't kill this guy, because you don't mess with cats in New York City. So he had to have, like, an intermediary, like, kind of negotiate the piece a bit. They brought back the cat, but on a sour note. A few weeks after Snowbee was returned, it had left the bodega, and it was hit by a car. Yeah, it was hit by a car, and the cat passed. But there's a beautiful memorial inside of that bodega. But when the. When Snowboard was returned, there was, like, a block party. It was pretty cool. It was all over the news and stuff.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's a big deal. Someone steals a cat or a cat's missing, the whole city gets involved. All five boroughs are on it.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: The sleuths come out.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Everybody's. Everybody's gathering together, and we're. We're finding this cat for sure. So, yeah, it's. It's been. It's. And it's sad that the cats are taken, but, you know, they're brought back most of the time, you know, and it's just beautiful to see everybody's just as unified, you know, getting this. This sweet little cat back.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: I. I heard this story about there's a cat in Hell's Kitchen.
Her name is Blanca. Her name is Blanca. And so it's a bodega in the front. And then once you hit the corner, there's like a flower shop, kind of like a wall of flowers you could purchase. And a lot of, like, these bodegas have these, like, flower connections, but so true. You know what I mean?
[00:33:47] Speaker A: They always have flowers. Yeah.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So. And that's where Blanca likes to hang out. So she's in Hell's Kitchen. I forget exactly where, but when. When Blanca. When she's not seen for a few days, the. The neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, like, there's a group chat about Blanca. So when she's not seen for a few days, people start to check in with each other. My friend Jenny was telling me this story. She lives in Hell's Kitchen. She was telling me the story about, like, Blanca. And. And really funny side note about Blanca, she has been spotted on Google Street View three years in a row. Yeah. You see her on the corner. There's one shot of an old guy bending over, petting Blanca by the old guy. Yeah.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Wow.
Go ahead.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: But, yeah. So three years in a row, she got caught on Google Street View. We have a blog about it, and we have the screenshots of Google Street View catching her three years in a row on the side, almost on the same screen.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: Pretty awesome. Yeah.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: Pretty cool.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Pretty amazing. Yeah. No, Pat, real quick side note. The flower thing, I've never seen.
Verbally talked about it, in a sense, if that's the right thing to say. Right phrase. But I. I've thought about those flower shops subconsciously. Like, I wonder how that they're connected to the bodegas. It's so funny because they're always a bodega, and then on the outside, sometimes there's.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, all around the world.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: How do they, you know.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. You know, it's a good little side hustle.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I wonder how that works. That's funny. Yeah.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Bodega in the front, party in the back, flower.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Hilarious. That is hilarious. Well, awesome. These are so many awesome stories. Like, we could talk all day.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: So let's get to the legislation.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: That you're doing.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So. So I'll kind of give you the brief history. So 2025, January, we launched a petition on change.org and it wasn't to legalize bodega cats. The idea here was I had spoken to a few cat rescues, and they had told me that, like, they get very few resources from. From the city and, you know, donations and, like, fundraisers. It's kind of difficult for them. It's usually pretty small organizations.
So I started a petition just as a hope and a prayer to get the city to provide resources, maybe reallocate some funding from the rat czar under Adams, reallocate some of the money that they allocated there, allocate that to spaying and neutering programs for bodega cats. And so I started the petition, and it got some traction. It probably hit about a thousand signatures. People started talking about it. And then Alexandra Silver from the mayor's office of Animal Welfare, she was the director, she reached out, sent me an email, and she goes, hey, Dan, like, we saw your petition. It's starting to get some traction. We just want to talk to you a little bit about what you're asking for. And I said, okay, great, innocent conversation. Let's do it. We jump on the phone and she tells me, like, look, in short, she basically says, look, I think that your heart's in the right place. It seems like you mean well with this, with this petition. And I want you to know that, like, the city loves bodega cats, too, and we want to be able to provide resources, but we can't because they're illegal under health code. We cannot allocate money to something that's not supposed to be there.
All these cats are technically illegal. They shouldn't be there in the first place. So.
So Alexandra Silver says, like, we're not able to provide this type of resource to these types of cats because they're illegal. So then I had this, like, moonshot light bulb idea where I got off the call, and I was kind of defeated. And I was like, well, I should just delete the petition. And then I said, why don't I just try to legalize bodega cats? Right? How hard could that be? That's easy enough, right?
[00:37:07] Speaker A: You can tell us how hard it might be.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: I'll tell you. So it took a few days, and I changed the title to something along the lines of, like, legalize bodega cats in New York City.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: And the reasoning there, by the way, like, the reason I even want bodega cats to be legalized is, like, number one, there's a lot of uncertainty for these bodega owners. Like, they don't know if they're going to get a summon. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But it's an effective form of road and control. So that's number one. And number two, these cats, they exist in this legal gray zone where they're not supposed to be there, but they're there anyway.
And a lot of times these cats are hidden. They're not exactly. There's not a bright light being shined on them. They exist in this kind of gray area where the city and the state, they cannot provide protections for something that's illegal. The first step was, I have to legalize bodega cat. So I started the petition, or I restarted the petition, and then it just took off from there. We got calls from npr, the New York Times, and for you, we just did an interview with a Japanese media company. So dozens of, like, major publications, they were all over the story. And then now it's at 14, almost 15,000 signatures. And we have a bill now in the city and in the state. So Keith Powers, his office reached out to us after the petition got caught on, and he said, hey, look, we saw your petition. I love it. I want to make it happen. Tell me what you think. So we worked on the bill's language a little bit. I told them what I'm hearing, what these cats really need. And what we settled on was, let's eliminate the fines on the city health code level. No more fines for bodega cats.
And then let's offer free spaying and free neutering for these cats.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: So that was the start, and that was pretty good. We were really happy with that. Linda Rosenthal, she starts, and she's been a champion for, like, animal advocacy for a really, really long time.
Linda Rosenthal introduces a bill in the state to officially legalize bodega cats. So there's a Department of Agriculture and markets, and they're the ones who designate, you know, what these markets in New York steer are allowed to do. And bodega cats was explicitly out animals in general out.
So she introduced this bill to legalize them on the state level, which we needed. We needed a companion bill to the city.
So she introduced this bill, and her bill goes way further, which I love. So the bill, for the first time ever, it sets actual care standards. So it says that these cats need to be, number one, treated well. Clean food, healthy food, nutritious food, clean water, a place to sleep. And if there's signs of abuse, that bill, it designates the Department of Agriculture and markets to set up consequences, like actual repercussions if these cats are not treated well, if they're abused, there's signs of abuse. If it's locked In a basement 24, 7, there's actual penalties. Now law enforcement can get involved and then take the cat if need be, which.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Take the cat if need to Take the cat. But for the first time, we're setting actual care standards. The city bill took it really far, and the state bill will take it the rest of the way. But it's about protecting these cats who've become like cultural institutions and become like, vocations, and they've become a part of New York City's culture, and they keep our stores clean. Right. So they're fantastic.
So, yeah, it's about getting them out of this legal gray area so that the city can step in and provide resources and the state can provide, like, actual enforcement and actually protect these cats.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: And so where are you specifically right now with that?
[00:40:25] Speaker B: So both bills are unfortunately stuck in committee. They both have to get hearings scheduled, which we fully expect these bills to pass. Legislation just takes a bit of time.
So they both need to have a hearing scheduled.
I think the city bill has to. It's sitting in the department, the committee on health, and we just need to schedule a hearing, and then once the hearing goes, then it should take off from there.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah. How can we help?
What can we say to our audience to help you? Is there anything?
[00:40:52] Speaker B: If you visit my website, there's a bit of a guide there. But basically, the guide says, get in touch with your local assembly people, your local state representatives, with your city council members, and then push them to push the chairman of the health committee to schedule a hearing to finally get this hearing on the books for these cats.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: And then after that, they'll do a committee vote, and then they'll do the full vote, and then hopefully we have legal bodega cats that are protected.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Good for you. That's a really cool thing you're doing.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't expect all this. I mean, this was all a shock to me too. Somehow I've become the voice of bodega cats.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: It all started after being named after a cat.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Yeah. You see Danny? Danny, my cat. Yeah.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: So, Dan, what projects are you working on currently right now?
[00:41:35] Speaker B: So we haven't fully announced this just yet, but we're about to do a big announcement on this. So you get the exclusive here today.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: Yes. You heard it here first.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: We're launching the first ever living archive of bodega cats in New York City.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: And what we're asking for is, like, photographers to reach out to us. We want to take photographers. Yep. Like you. Absolutely. You're definitely welcome.
We want to take them on, like, bodega cat walks. Go visit 3, 5, 6, 7 bodegas, visit their cats, ask their Stories, write down their names, and then have the photographer take photos of these cats. And then we're going to add it to the archive that'll exist on our website, bodegacatsofnewyork.com and it's going to be a growing living archive of the cats that existed once in New York City. It's first of its kind. And we're also asking sponsors to reach out to us if they want to sponsor a part of the archive, help, like, fund this thing.
And yeah, we'll keep growing it, and then hopefully, you know, maybe another book someday. But yeah, that's, that's the, the current project, and we're about to announce it probably in a few weeks.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Oh, I love it. You know, let me know what I can do to help. I'm happy to post, you know, put on my stories, too, and.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Great.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: I mean, it's all you embody about, you know, what you are. You embody the love of New York, which includes cats. Totally. Does that make sense? I don't know if I worded that very eloquently.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that, like, I, I, I've brought bodega cats to, like, the forefront through social media. And, like, I think I've gotten more New Yorkers and people, not even from New York City, to, like, really fall in love with bodega cats.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Right. You have.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Which, great. Like, that's, if, if that's all I accomplished, then that's tremendous.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: You know, we've all had our, have our bodega cats. I have my bodega cats in my neighborhoods that I love over the years, you know, and I always say hi to them and pet them, and you
[00:43:18] Speaker B: go out of your way to go see them.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: You take the long way home.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, I just stopped by, not even to buy things sometimes, just to see the cat, you know, and now here you are bringing them to the forefront with social media and everything. And so I think it's, it's a really nice thing that you're doing.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: We want to shine a light on them. And I think, like, when, when these cats are visible, you know, I think accountability comes with that.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: Like, you start to ask about the cat, and then the owners start to realize people love this cat. They want to see this cat all the time.
So there's some protection just there. You know, there's real accountability when people see these things and fall in love with them.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Awesome, awesome. So I have some quick fire questions real quick, my friend.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: Favorite NYC neighborhood.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Probably the West Village. It's my favorite neighborhood to walk around in that Soho and Chelsea are my favorite. Walk around neighborhoods.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that too.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: How about your favorite bodega sandwich?
[00:44:15] Speaker B: Oh, man, I do like a classic chopped cheese, but my heart probably belongs to like the bacon, egg and cheese. Salt, pepper, ketchup, mandatory.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: For some reason, I was waiting for that.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: Yeah. My bagel order is scallion, cream cheese, bacon everything bagel, lightly toasted.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: Wow. Nice.
Best cat name.
That's.
I don't know how to.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, that's a really good question.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: Because of your own name, you know?
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Oh, sure. Probably. Yeah. Yeah, probably Danny. That's probably because that's who I was named after.
[00:44:49] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:44:50] Speaker B: Giving my childhood cat a shout out.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: That's funny. Favorite borough besides your own?
[00:44:56] Speaker B: I think Brooklyn's probably my favorite borough.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Closely followed by Queens because their food scene is incredible.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: It is unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, it really is. Favorite NYC movie.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Like movie about New York City or just in general?
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Well, yeah, exactly. Favorite NYC movie. Yeah.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: I think I like When Harry Met Sally that the cats.
Not that everything in my life has to do with cats, but the cats Deli, you know that.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, the famous thing. Yes, that's like K A T Z cats.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. I do have other interests just to like, your audience knows.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: That is funny.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: But yeah.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: One thing tourists don't understand about New York.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: We're almost done, so.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's such a good question. What they don't understand about New York, I think that they sometimes forget that, like, people live here full time. I had this experience once. I was on the Brooklyn Bridge. I was on my bike before they separated. The bike.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: I was just going to ask you that. Yes, yes. Yeah.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: Before they separated, you're on the bridge
[00:45:58] Speaker A: or below, you know.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: But back then when I was on my bike, there was, you know, the line split and on the right side was the bike lane. On the left side was like all the tourists, supposedly. Exactly, exactly. They spill over and that's when you get to yell at tourists. You get to go bike lane at the top of your leg and you're not wrong, which is the best thing ever. So I remember one time I was riding my bike and then this guy was blocking the entire bike lane and I was like, hey, like, move. And I was like yelling at him. I was like, get the hell out of the way. It's a bike lane. And then he turns around and he goes, it's the Brooklyn Bridge. As if, like, people don't Actually live here. Like, this is a commuter bridge, you know, this isn't my. I'm not. This is not my photo opportunity. This is how I'm getting to work today on my bike, you know, So I think that, like, people live here full time, you know, and that's a good point. If we ask you to walk a little bit faster. Yeah, a little bit faster.
[00:46:41] Speaker A: That just happened to me today. Trying to get to the podcast studio. I was like, would you just. So many people were in front of me and just, like, looking at the. You know, all the purses and everything, you know, and I'm just like, would you move? You know, I didn't say that, but
[00:46:54] Speaker B: I'm like, could you not take up the whole side?
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm getting frustrated. They're just, like, strolling along on Canal street, you know, clear a path a little bit.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: Yeah, people live here. We gotta get places.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: You know, I don't know if I can ask you this, but that was.
It says favorite bodega cat. Do you have a favorite bodega cat in your neighborhood or anything?
[00:47:12] Speaker B: I'll tell you, my favorite cat was Luna in Fort Greene. She was off. It was, like, almost Carlton and Myrtle.
Right by Fort Greene park, people. That's probably a good landmark for folks. Luna was the cat that started this whole thing. She was the cat that I noticed for the first time. She was a black and white tuxedo cat.
At the end of our book, we kind of pay homage to Luna, and we also kind of pay homage to, like, the name Luna, because every cat we came across was named Luna.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: We talked about that earlier. That's so funny. It's so true.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about it.
Luna. Yeah. Number one name for a cat. That and Oreo. Oreo is a close second. There's tons of Oreos.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: But, yeah, Luna was the one that started this whole thing. She was the one who, like, I first really noticed and truly appreciated. You know, there's nothing else distracting me. During COVID you know, the city had slowed down a little bit, and it was my chance to, like, just. Just breathe for a moment, like, notice things that I typically wouldn't notice or maybe notice them in a different way. And for me, it was. It was bodega cats. And I'm so thankful that I got a chance to, like, show people this amazing subculture.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Right. Really, Like, I am, too.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: It's gotten huge real quick.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: I'm back. I'm going to backtrack one second.
The bike lane. You happy now that it Moved on the Brooklyn Bridge.
I. Or did you prefer it on the brick?
[00:48:26] Speaker B: I preferred it on the bridge.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Preferred on the bridge. It was a bit of a thrill there, you know, going down the bike lane, people stepping over. You're not sure if you're gonna hit them. And, yeah, sometimes you clip an elbow, some dude, you know?
[00:48:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: But I liked it as it was before. But as. Again, as a commuter tool for folks, it is nice that they separated, you know? Like, it gets us to work a lot faster, and.
[00:48:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's funny. And then they also moved the vendor, so there's a lot more room for pedestrians.
[00:48:50] Speaker B: Yeah, great. Everybody should experience the bridge. It's a beautiful bridge.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: I love that bridge. Yeah.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: Iconic.
[00:48:55] Speaker A: A cat actually walked on that bridge.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: You don't say.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: Yeah, tell me the story.
Okay. This is awesome. This is awesome, Dan. Let's. Let's. Let's wrap it up. So we have one final question, and you're good to go. Are you happy with what you're doing? Oh, love it.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: This is really fun.
[00:49:08] Speaker B: Oh, good, Good.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Dan, before we let you go, we here at the New Yorkers Podcast want to know what it means to you, Dan Ramada, to be a New Yorker, man.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. I think that it kind of comes down to, like, utilizing everything that the city has to offer. I think, like, try different food scenes, try different cuisines, go to different boroughs, go to different neighborhoods and experience things. Like, truly, I think New Yorkers are filled with these amazing experiences that sometimes, like, they go unappreciated. Like the fact that you can get Thai food and then you can get Dominican food, and then, you know, across the street, you can get a Brazilian steak sandwich. Like, I think that to be a New Yorker means to, like, try different things, like, capitalize on the fact that we have the most amazing city in this planet, and there's a lot of experiences here that are just waiting to happen to you. So I think as a. As a real New Yorker, like, you should branch out, and you should. You should take advantage of everything the city has to offer.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: Nicely said, my friend. Thank you. Love it. Off the cuff, when you said Brazilian, I thought you were gonna say Brazilian wax or something for a split second.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: You ever have a Brazilian steak sandwich? They're fantastic.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: What'd you say?
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Brazilian steak sandwiches?
[00:50:17] Speaker A: Oh, no, I haven't.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: It's like skirt steak. It's almost like a chimichurri on top.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: I can't believe I don't know about it. Yeah, yeah.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: Is this at my local bodega?
[00:50:28] Speaker B: No, probably not. You're gonna have to go to, like, a restaurant.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Okay, I gotcha.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Where I get my chopped cheese and my bodega cat I can say hi to.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Two birds.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks, Dan. You're awesome. You know, whenever you want to come back and chat. Yeah, you know, I'd love to with your second book. And let's tie it up.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kelly.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Oh, you're awesome, Dan. Thank you for joining us today for this week's episode of the New Yorkers podcast. Why don't you let everyone know where they can find you on social media and where they can buy your book?
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Our Instagram account is ew yorkbodegacats. Our website is just bodegacatsofnewyork.com you can find information about our upcoming book. It's coming out October 2026. So a couple months.
And if you want to learn more about our walking tours, it's a historical walking tour about the history of cats in New York City. That's catsabouttowntours.com how long are these tours too? About an hour and a half. About two miles. Just under two miles?
[00:51:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Perfect.
What's again, everyone, I'm your host, Kelly Kopp, also known as New York City Kopp, all across my social media.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: Please like and subscribe to the New Yorkers podcast and you could follow the New Yorkers on social media. He New Yorkers podcast.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: You can leave a rating or a comment to let us know how you are enjoying the show. Everyone, we read through all your comments and DMs, so please, we would love to hear from you. Thank you, Courtney Newman, Loretta Smith and Swabsworthy for your kind words on the last episode. If you want to be featured at the end of an episode, leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or comment on Spotify or YouTube.
[00:52:03] Speaker B: And thank you, Sarah D. Cordova, Planter Joey and Pisco Punk, for your comments on Instagram.
[00:52:09] Speaker A: Have a lovely day, my friends, and we will see you next time.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: Goodbye.
[00:52:15] Speaker A: This is the last stop on this train. Everyone. Please leave the train. Thank you for riding with MTA New York City Transit.
