Coney Island, Part 2: Santos fights New York City hall to save his garden for his good cats

I am so exasperated! I have been trying to load these pictures for hours, and now that they are finally loaded (not through my usual Safari Browser, but through Firefox, which is much slower than Safari) I feel too exasperated to write in here. And yet, I need to post this story. So...

As you can see, Santos let me into his Coney Island garden. Buttons, who just happened to be as cute as a button, lept up into the cage of the white tiger. I was frightened for her, but she handled bravely. The white tiger was so impressed with her courage that he stood perfectly still, in admiration and did not harm her at all.

As for Luther, Santos told me that he used to be Lucy, but then one day it was discovered that he has a male organ, and so he became Luther. I am finding that this is a common mistake, which makes me feel better about how our original estimation of the Whole Kitten, Kaboodle.

Santos was born in Puerto Rico, moved to New York 53 years ago and sometime after that, he made this garden in Coney Island. He calls it, "Santos White Garden." Somtime later, he found eight homeless kittens, and so he let them move into the garden. He has had cats there, ever since.

Buttons and Luther. Buttons has two little button eyes, a button nose, and a button butt. That is why she is buttons. Santos did not tell me this, I just deduced it. We Krackers have always been good deducers.

But Santos did tell me how he almost lost the garden to the city of New York. There were folks in the government of that city that did not think that there were enough buildings in New York. They sent some scouts out to find places where they could build more buildings.

Such a scout found Santos' White Gardens.

Soon, Santos received word: his garden had been condemned! All of his little statues, his hanging apes, his various toys, would all have to come down. As for his chickens and ducks, it would be best if he just ate them, as they stood in the way of progress.

His cats, who had always had free roam of the garden, would have to learn how to live indoors only, or maybe be given to someone who lived on a farm.

Look at Tiger! Tiger is the daddy cat to Luther and Buttons. He is old but virile. He never did lay before the surgeon's knife. Look how tough he is! You can see that he is an outdoor cat. And yet, he is a city cat. Not a farm cat.

What would Tiger do, if Santos had to leave his garden, so that some rich person could put up big building in its place, and grow even richer.

But Santos fought for his Tiger! No one was going to take Tiger's home away, just to build a building. And Tiger has a wife, Fuzzy. She needed a home, too. Plus, Santos opens his gates to classrooms of New York school children, who come over to see what a garden is like, and to pet the kitties.

Santos protested in front of city hall. He made signs. He made phone calls.

Santos even got the ear of former Governor Spitzer, before his recreational activities cost him his job. Spitzer was at first in favor of removing gardens for building, but when after Santos educated him, he came around.

A governor really does not have final say in what a city does to the gardens within it, but still he was a good allie to have.

In the end. Santos won. His garden is still there. Schoolchildren still come around. His four cats have a home, with chickens and ducks.

As for Buttons and Luther, I should note that they were only half the litter. Santos gave their two siblings away.

What about Fuzzy, their mother?

Here she comes! This is fuzzy!

Fuzzy comes to Santos.

Santos also plays a blues guitar, down on the boardwalk, in the summer time.

I am too tired to write anymore about it. Just look at the picture, and add your own caption.

Looks to me like they all get along pretty good.

Luther.
Buttons and Luther.

Luther and Tiger. There's more, but I must go to bed now, so this will have to do.

Coney Island, Part 1: Kitten gets into the chicken hut; chickens unruffled

As the late afternoon sun sank toward the Coney Island horizon, I knew that if I wanted to find a cat in this neighborhood of New York City, I had better get looking. So I left the beach and boardwalk, and strolled on into the town section. As I strolled, I looked at every door, every porch, every window; peeked inside every little shop and store and peered down allies and roadways, but saw no cat.

Then I came upon an unusual scene - in the midst of the surrounding buildings I found a lot filled with grass, tiny garden plots, and a host of miniature statuary, ranging from donkeys to a life sized toy soldier. 

At first, I thought I had happened upon a miniature golf course, but I had not. It was a garden of some kind. 

Then I saw the above statue of a cat, in the middle of a tiny garden plot. "Well," I thought to myself. "If someone likes cats enough to put a statue like this in their garden, then it stands to reason that they might like them enough to invite real, flesh and blood cats to live with them."

 

So I walked slowly along the outside of the fence, studying the strange menagerie of artificial animals on the other side of the fence. Soon, I came to a second ceramic cat. It was white, and in the plot with it was a chicken, also white. Taking pictures through the heavy wire of the black, chain-link fence was most difficult. It required me to bring the lens right up to the little diamond shaped openings formed by the wire links, but these gaps were too small to fit the lens barrel through.

So I had to position the camera so that the edges of the barrel rested against the black-painted metal of the chain link, but the glass peered through unobstructed. This left me with a very limited field of view and little maneuverability. None-the-less, in this manner I photographed the hen and the statue.

If you click on a few of these pictures, you will see that there are all kinds of interesting objects in the background.

I continued my stroll along the fence and spotted two effigies - one of a gorilla, the other an orangutan, dangling by the arms from a tree. Beneath the tree was a chicken hut. I thought about taking a photograph, just because the scene was so strange, but the light was dimming, I could see neither cat nor human within the fenced in area, and so I decided that if I was to find a cat, I had just better move on.

Just as I walked beyond the compound, I heard the voice of a woman: "Did you photograph the roosters, too?" I turned, and saw an elderly black woman addressing me.

"Did you photograph the roosters, too?" she asked again. "I saw you photographing the hens. You should photograph the roosters, too. Come back. I'll show you the roosters."

I followed her back to the above scene. She pointed to the hut. "Can you see the roosters?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered, as I took a picture to be polite. "But what I really want to photograph is a cat. Do you know if there is a cat anywhere in there?"

"Oh, yes!" she said. "Of course! He keeps cats." She then peered intently at the chicken hut. "Look!" she exclaimed. "There's a cat in there right now! A kitten. That kitten is not supposed to be in with the chickens! Santos won't like that. That kitten is being naughty."

Look closely through the wire front of the chicken hut. Do you see a kitten?

Now can you see it? Dimly, almost like a little feline wraith, just before Halloween? And look! There's a rooster in front of it.

"Oh, Santos is not going to be happy about this!" the woman said. "That kitten is not supposed to be in with the roosters. I wonder where Santos is? He's usually nearby. Well, I've got to go. Good luck, getting your picture. If he comes while you are here, Santos will let you inside."

She left.

I wondered if the kitten might come out of the chicken coop if I called out to it. "Kitty!" I trilled. "Kitty! Kitty! Here, kitteee, kitty!" The kitten perked up, and came trotting out, all excited. He trotted right past a couple of roosters.

Not withstanding the fact that it was I whose call had excited him to come, the kitty completely ignored me. He did not ignore this hen, however. He studied her intently.

As I continued to try to call him to the fence, the kitten sat down, and studied his surroundings.

Then the kitten went off to explore, as a rooster observed. I followed, struggling to take pictures through the link openings in the fence.

The kitten suddenly leaped into the air, and landed right beside the rooster. This antic ruffled the rooster's feathers.

The kitten then marched past the feet of the toy soldier, back in the direction of the chicken hut. I followed.

Soon, the kitten turned around, and headed back in the other direction.

Again he passed the toy soldier.

He passed a white tiger, entered a walkway, and then turned toward the fence. Yes, I followed.

And then, suddenly, he stopped. He had brought me to another kitten and both sat looking at me from the other side of the fence.

It was as if the first kitten had intentionally led me to the second, and now that he had introduced us, he left, so that I could turn my camera onto the second kitten, and he could get some peace.

This is a mistake. I had meant for the camera to focus on the kitten, but instead it focused upon the scene behind the kitten. As it turned out, it was a very appropriate mistake for, even as I took this picture, behind one of those windows in the background a set of human eyes looked out, and studied me.

Hoping that Santos might come, I lingered with the kitten for several minutes and struggled to photograph him through the fence. People passing by on the sidewalk said nothing, but I could imagine what kind of thoughts were taking place in their heads.

Finally, I concluded that Santos was not going to appear, I stood up, and turned to walk away.

"Would you like to go inside, and meet Buttons?" I was surprised to hear a voice behind me, just as I began to walk away. I turned around and saw a man who wore a beret cap. His skin was dark and leathery. He had been around awhile.

"I'm Santos," he introduced himself. He pointed through a link in the fence. "That's button. And look! There's Luther." The first kitten came trotting back.

"Here, let me open the gate. You can come inside."

Next up: How Santos fought City Hall to save his garden for his cats

Coney Island on Bill Hess Wasilla blog - warning to mothers with small children: contains racy material