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DogMom
August 13th, 2009, 03:46 PM
Kittens born inside Wall Street’s biggest lion

The first tenant of the new Goldman Sachs tower paid no rent and signed no lease when she moved in this spring.

Pregnant with quintuplets, she commandeered just a few square feet of space in the 43-story skyscraper that is nearing completion. It was not the prime real estate with river views, but rather an alcove tucked between two sheets of plywood at the tower’s base.

There, unnoticed by the international banking firm, the black cat built a bed of newspaper and cardboard boxes. At the end of June, when her new home was ready, she brought five inky black kittens into a noisy world of jackhammers and backhoes.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” said Silkey, a traffic flagger for the Goldman site, who discovered the kittens. Silkey, who goes by a single name, noticed the pregnant cat trotting across Murray St. this spring and started feeding her before the kittens were born. Local workers asked Silkey about the cat and soon several people were taking turns buying food.

“A lot of people here love cats,” Silkey said as she waved cars down Murray St. this week. “You don’t want to see nothing happen to them.”

Silkey and others cared for the cat and kittens as best they could, but they soon called the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy, who in turn called in the experts: Rich and Patti Brotman.

The Brotmans have been rescuing cats in Battery Park City for over 15 years, and they formed an animal search and rescue unit after 9/11 with the neighborhood’s Community Emergency Response Team.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_329/kittensborn.html

Read the rest at the link for how the Brotmans rescued the mother and her kittens. With cool pics, too!

DogMom
August 20th, 2009, 01:36 PM
Cool update!


Goldman helps out ‘BlackBerry’ kittens

Four of the five stray kittens born at the Goldman Sachs construction site now have names and nearly clean bills of health, and they could soon be on their way to adoptive homes.

After a Downtown Express story last week about how Rich and Patti Brotman rescued the kittens and brought them home to their Gateway Plaza apartment, the Brotmans received e-mails and phone calls from people who wanted to help. One of them was from a community liaison with Goldman Sachs, the bank that is building its 43-story headquarters in Battery Park City.

Goldman offered to cover the kittens’ veterinary costs, about $300 apiece, and will post adoption details on its internal Web site, hoping to place the kittens with Goldman employees, said Andrea Raphael, spokesperson for Goldman.

“We want to be a good and responsible neighbor,” Raphael said.

Goldman will also post notices around the site of their new headquarters, on West St. between Vesey and Murray Sts., advising construction workers to keep an eye out for the mother cat and the last remaining kitten, who are still at large.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_330/goldmanhelpsout.html