Peggy Gavan of <a href="http://hatchingcatnyc.com/">The Hatching Cat</a> is doing research for a forthcoming book about the cats of New York City's firehouses. I don't know how common it is now, but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, almost every fire house had a cat mascot, whose duties were mostly to control the mice that infested the horses' food. She has discovered an unnatural number of cats who would slide down the fire pole! With hundreds of fire houses and each firehouse going through quite a few cats over the years, I suppose that was inevitable, but one has to wonder whether firefighters may have spent their off time teaching their cats to slide down a fire pole in order to get some newspaper coverage like their predecessors.

Tommy was one cat that managed to get his picture in the paper. There was also Thomas, Dick, Jerry, Barney, Tootsy, Bouncer, and Peter, who all gained a reputation for sliding down a fire pole along with their human co-workers. Read about them all in<a href="http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2022/07/14/pole-dancing-fire-cats-gotham/"> a roundup at The Hatching Cat</a>. Some have links to further stories of their fame. -via <a href="http://strangeco.blogspot.com/">Strange Company</a>&nbsp;#cat #firedepartment #firehouse #firepole