Why Legalizing Bodega Cats Is the Best Thing for Animal Welfare

<h3>A health inspector walks into a bodega in the Bronx. There is a cat on the counter. The inspector can do exactly one thing: write a fine for $200 to $350.</h3><p>He cannot ask if the cat has been vaccinated. He cannot require that it be spayed or neutered. He cannot check whether it has food, water, or a clean place to sleep. His job is food safety, not animal welfare. Those are different agencies, different mandates, and neither one has a framework for ensuring these cats are properly cared for. The only rule on the books is that the cat should not be there at all.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Zx0BSsdVeOpw3D_1zvUGOA.png" /></figure><p>That is the system. The sole enforcement mechanism for the estimated 3,000 to 4,000 cats living in New York City bodegas is a fine that punishes the animal’s existence. Not its condition. Not the quality of its care. Just the fact that it is there.</p><p>Legalization is not about letting owners off the hook. It is the only way to put them on one.</p><p>Some bodega owners take excellent care of their cats. I have spent four years visiting stores in every borough, and most of what I have seen looks like that. But not all of it. Some owners do not know how to care for a cat. Some do not prioritize it. Cats get locked in basements. They go without proper food. When they get old or sick, they get ignored. I have heard enough of those stories to know they are not exaggerations.</p><p>The question is what to do about it. Right now, the answer is nothing meaningful. A cat that is not supposed to exist cannot be subject to care requirements. No agency is mandating vet visits for an animal the law says should not be in the building. And while the NYPD handles animal cruelty complaints, that requires someone to call 311, an investigation, and due process. That is a system built for extreme cases. It does not help a cat that just needs a vaccination and a checkup.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*2jVIe49Bo608bE7iRssg7A.png" /></figure><p>Fines do not solve this. A $300 penalty does not get a cat vaccinated. It does not teach an owner what proper nutrition looks like. It does not create a pathway for a rescue organization to intervene when a cat is being neglected. The fine addresses the wrong problem.</p><p>What legalization makes possible is accountability for care. And it makes the answer to the harder question possible too: if an owner will not meet the standards, the cat gets removed. That is what we started the petition for. Not to make it easier for owners to keep cats without consequences. The opposite. To create consequences that are actually tied to the welfare of the animal.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*aO4hLQ-LhGMoab3UOIik-Q.png" /></figure><p>Legalization is not the whole answer. It is the part of the answer that is ready. And it is the part that makes every other answer possible.</p><p>At the state level, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal introduced A08341, which would require the Department of Agriculture and Markets to create official health and safety guidelines for cats in retail food stores. Mandatory vet visits. Spaying or neutering. Proper food and water. Designated rest areas separate from food prep. If an owner does not meet the standards, the cat can be removed through a process that actually has teeth.</p><p>At the city level, Int. 1471 would stop the city from penalizing stores simply for having a cat and establish voluntary vaccination and spay/neuter programs. The city bill is a shield. The state bill is a framework. Together, they would give New York the most comprehensive legal structure for working shop cats in the country.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*dssQk6IcXJbOUMQAKm-XSA.jpeg" /></figure><p>Animal welfare advocates have pushed back on parts of this. Some argue that fines give rescue organizations leverage to gain access to stores. Others argue that public funding should go to low-income families seeking spay and neuter services, not to business owners. Both are fair points.</p><p>But leverage built on a threat only works if the owner engages. And the broader investment in spay/neuter access is completely compatible with legalization. The two are not in competition. One does not cancel the other.</p><p>There is also a harder reality underneath this conversation. Affordable veterinary care in New York City is already stretched past capacity. The ASPCA’s own mobile spay/neuter clinics operate on waitlists only, with capacity they describe as “extremely limited due to ongoing staffing shortages and high demand.” Low-cost options require income qualification. Animal Care Centers of NYC has stopped picking up stray cats due to funding cuts. Cat rescues alone cannot cover the gap. The infrastructure everyone agrees is needed does not exist yet, and building it will take years and serious public investment.</p><p>So the question becomes: do we wait until every piece is in place before we fix the one piece we can fix now? That logic sounds responsible. In practice, it means nothing changes. The cats that need better care today do not benefit from a comprehensive plan that might arrive in five years.</p><p>You cannot set standards for animals the law pretends are not there. You cannot hold owners accountable for care when the only rule is that the cat should not exist. You cannot enforce welfare requirements through a system that only knows how to write a fine for the animal’s presence.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*z4uzEGX9B6ZdxO9N95-jcg.png" /></figure><p>There are thousands of cats in stores across this city. Most of them are doing fine. Some of them are not. The only way to help the ones that need it is to bring all of them into the open.</p><p>That starts with making it legal to acknowledge they are there.</p><p><a href="https://medium.com/p/024a7efe9e39/edit?utm_campaign=bcny_bio&utm_medium=linktree&utm_source=medium">Our book, <em>Bodega Cats of New York,</em> comes out October 2026.</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=024a7efe9e39" width="1" height="1" alt="">

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How I Documented a Legal Gray Area and Changed NYC Law

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*mwo-fb2_SNhX93ENiPUelg.jpeg" /><figcaption><em>Visiting bodega cats with Gulce</em></figcaption></figure><p><em>The woman on the phone from the Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare was patient. She listened to the whole pitch. The petition signatures, the media coverage, the idea for a certification program. When I finished, she gave me the answer I had not expected.</em></p><p>“We want to help,” she said. “But legally, there is nothing we can do.”</p><p>The problem was not City Hall. The problem was Albany. Under state law, a cat in a food establishment is a violation. The city cannot officially protect something that state regulations say should not exist. She suggested I find a Council member willing to introduce legislation.</p><p>I hung up that call in March 2025 with a new understanding of how New York actually works.</p><p><strong>The Gray Area</strong></p><p>I had been documenting bodega cats since 2020. Started during COVID, when the city went quiet and the bodegas stayed open. Their cats stayed put, same as always. I grabbed a good Instagram handle and figured I would post a few photos a week. The account grew. Strangers started sending me cats from neighborhoods I had never heard of. I reposted one. Then another. The project stopped being mine and became the city’s.</p><p>By 2025, I had documented hundreds of cats across all five boroughs. I had also learned something uncomfortable: every single one of them was technically illegal.</p><p>NYC Health Code Section 81.25 prohibits animals in food establishments. Fines run $200 to $300. Enforcement is inconsistent. Some inspectors look the way. Others write the citation. Owners have no way of knowing which inspector they will get.</p><p>The math they do is simple. A cat fine costs $200. A rodent citation costs $1,000. The cat stays.</p><p><strong>The Petition</strong></p><p>In January 2025, I started a petition on Change.org asking the city to create a legal category for working cats. Certification, not criminalization. Protection for the owners who care for them.</p><p>I thought if enough people signed, something might shift. The petition hit 5,000 signatures in a few weeks. Then 10,000. People found it without promotion. They signed because bodega cats were already part of their daily routine, and the idea that owners could be fined for keeping them made no sense.</p><p>In April, NPR ran a feature on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Jeff Lunden came to Brooklyn and walked through bodegas with me. At the end of the piece, he disclosed that he had signed the petition himself.</p><p>The coverage kept expanding. The New York Times. The Guardian. Japanese national television. People I had never met started recognizing me at craft markets and asking about the cats.</p><p>The petition crossed 13,000 signatures.</p><p><strong>The Coalition</strong></p><p>That same spring, we formed the Bodega Cat Collective with the largest bodega cat accounts on Instagram: @bodegacatsofinstagram, @shopcatsshow, @bodegacatspirits. Together, we launched a fundraiser for rescue organizations doing the work on the ground. It raised over $7,400 for Bronx Tails Cat Rescue, Catstoria Rescue, Sassee Cats, and Bronx Community Cats.</p><p>Money matters, but coordination mattered more. The accounts started amplifying each other. The message got cleaner: these cats deserve recognition.</p><p><strong>The Bill</strong></p><p>In June, Councilmember Keith Powers reached out. He had seen the coverage. He wanted to help.</p><p>Over the next several months, I worked with his office on the language. What the bill could realistically do. What it could not.</p><p>On November 12, 2025, Powers filed Intro 1471, the first bill in New York City history aimed at protecting working cats in retail food establishments. It had five co-sponsors on day one: Francisco P. Moya, Sandy Nurse, Chi A. Ossé, Frank Morano, and David M. Carr.</p><p>The bill does three things. It stops the city from using its administrative code to prohibit cats in retail food stores. It creates a free vaccination program through the Office of Animal Welfare. And it creates a free spay/neuter program through the same office.</p><p>What it does not do: override state law. Full legalization requires Albany to act. This bill clears the local barrier. The state barrier is next.</p><p><strong>What Happens Now</strong></p><p>Powers is term-limited and left the Council at the end of December 2025. Eleven minutes after I asked who would carry the bill forward, Councilmember Frank Morano volunteered to take over as prime sponsor. A Republican from Staten Island, picking up a bill introduced by a Democrat from Manhattan. That matters.</p><p>The bill is currently with the Committee on Health, chaired by Lynn Schulman. It needs a hearing, a committee vote, a floor vote, and the mayor’s signature.</p><p>Meanwhile, a state bill, A08341, was introduced by Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal and re-referred to the Agriculture Committee in January 2026. For the first time, there is legislation pending at both the city and state levels.</p><p><strong>What I Learned</strong></p><p>Documentation is not protection. Press coverage is not policy. The only way to change how a system works is to change the rules that govern it.</p><p>I spent four years building an archive. That archive gave me credibility. The credibility gave me access. The access gave me a seat at the table.</p><p>The cats are still technically illegal. The bill has not passed. But the path forward now exists because enough people decided to make it exist.</p><p><a href="https://bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book"><em>Bodega Cats of New York</em></a><em> </em>comes out October 2026.</p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=c65cd48a1d9d" width="1" height="1" alt="">

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He Knows What They Look Like

<p>Manny was outside when we got there. Not near the door. At the door. Watching the sidewalk like he was deciding whether to let us in.</p><p>Big cat. Two-tone nose. Clean coat. The kind of presence you notice before you notice the store. He’s been working this East Side market on York Street for three years. People stop in just to say hi. The owner says he has a following.</p><p>We asked about health inspectors.</p><p>“He knows what they look like.”</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*d4Uyi62FpXUpyOW8__mEnQ.jpeg" /></figure><p>The owner didn’t elaborate much. Manny has areas he patrols and areas he avoids. He never goes near the food. When inspectors show up, he’s gone. The owner has never gotten a ticket.</p><p>“If they saw him?”</p><p>“They would warn. Oh yeah, yeah.”</p><p>NYC Health Code 81.25 prohibits live animals in food service establishments. No exceptions. But inspectors see bodega cats constantly, and most of them make a choice. A store with a cat is usually a store without mice. Mice are the bigger problem.</p><p>Manny doesn’t know any of this. He doesn’t know about the city bill sitting in committee or the owners who got warnings after a newspaper listed their addresses. He knows his territory. He knows when to be seen and when to disappear.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*bXY6ycmax0GzoVngk_la2A.jpeg" /></figure><p>The first thing we noticed was how healthy he looked. That two-tone nose, the weight on him, the way he held the door like it belonged to him. Someone was taking care of this cat.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*brbfjvnhFIZXJACNdExvlg.jpeg" /></figure><p>Sometimes it’s hard to find the right store. You walk a neighborhood for an hour, ask around, come up empty. Not this time. Manny was already outside, doing his job. All we had to do was show up.</p><p>Our book, <a href="https://bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book"><em>Bodega Cats of New York</em></a><em> comes out October 2026.</em></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=26542f9739ec" width="1" height="1" alt="">

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The Cat Who Set the Color Palette

<p><em>In a Financial District bodega, the interior design was dictated by the resident mouser.</em></p><p>When the owner of this Financial District shop was preparing to reopen, a contractor asked what color the new floor should be. The owner did not consult a swatch book or a design firm. Instead, he pointed to his cat, Layla.</p><p>“Make it look like Layla,” he said.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*5TKcrsKKyYhVAC1CQpBamg.png" /></figure><p>The result is a soft beige floor that perfectly matches Layla’s cream-colored coat. It was a decision rooted in more than just aesthetics. For the owner, the floor was a form of recognition for the cat who made the business viable again.</p><p>Before he took over the space, the shop had been closed for four years. In that time, the basement had been overtaken by mice. The owner brought Layla in to address the infestation. Within three days, the problem was solved. He has not seen a mouse in the shop since. He credits her presence with keeping them away, noting that once they smell a cat, they do not return.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*mbmaqfZwW0TdtllRLC71Zw.png" /></figure><p>Layla has since transitioned from an active hunter to a neighborhood fixture. She spends much of her time perched in a cat tree by the front window, where she watches the sidewalk with pale, translucent eyes. Her presence draws significant foot traffic; the owner observes that she pulls in more people than the inventory of chips and drinks.</p><p>Local residents and commuters have embraced her as a part of their daily routine. Some stop by specifically to see her, often bringing toys or treats. There is now a dedicated shelf in the shop filled with items customers have purchased for her. While she is most active and social during the morning hours — interacting with construction crews and students — she remains a point of continuity for the neighborhood throughout the day.</p><p>The owner, who is from Yemen, chose the name Layla because it is common in his home country, derived from the Arabic word for “night.” He named her well before he realized she would clear out years of mice in a single weekend.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*-jwzwm-ZhgtttEnFqv32-A.png" /></figure><p>Today, the most frequent question from customers remains the same: “Did you pick the cat to match the floor or the floor to match the cat?”</p><p>The owner always provides the same answer: Layla came first.</p><p>For more stories like this, check out our upcoming book: <a href="https://bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book">bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=d6e1228d054d" width="1" height="1" alt="">

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How a Bodega Cat Petition Became Two Bills

<h3>The path to legalizing New York’s shop cats didn’t start with a bill. It started with a petition, a “No,” and a lesson in how New York really works.</h3><h3>The Petition</h3><p>I had been documenting bodega cats since 2023. By early 2025, Bodega Cats of New York had tens of thousands of followers, press coverage from NPR to Japanese national television, and a growing archive of the cats that live and work in corner stores across all five boroughs.</p><p>But documentation is not protection. The cats were still technically illegal. Owners were still getting fined. Nothing structural was changing.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Ll43V1qLPV0CXpt-JmOCCA.png" /></figure><p>In January 2025, I started a petition on Change.org. The ask was simple: create a certification program that would give bodega cats legal recognition and protect store owners from fines. I thought if enough people signed, the city would have to pay attention.</p><p>It now has over 13,500 signatures. It keeps climbing without any active promotion. People find it because they care.</p><h3>The Meeting That Changed Everything</h3><p>Last March, I sat down with the Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare. I went in with ideas: a certification program, a fund managed by a nonprofit, maybe an official Bodega Cat Day. I wanted to know what the city could do.</p><p>They were generous with their time and honest about the constraints.</p><p>The short version: the city’s hands are legally tied.</p><p>Under current regulations, a cat in a food establishment is a health code violation. The city cannot officially protect, endorse, or celebrate something that state law says shouldn’t exist. The barrier wasn’t City Hall. It was the State Department of Agriculture and Markets, which licenses bodegas statewide.</p><p>I left that meeting with a new understanding. Awareness wasn’t enough. A fund wasn’t enough. The only way to actually protect these cats was to change the law. City level and state level.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*KJ_sloRZUPTHr286C11nAA.png" /></figure><h3>The Rat Math</h3><p>Bodega owners aren’t villains. They’re doing math.</p><p>Any shopkeeper in New York knows the score. The fine for having a cat is roughly $200. The fine for evidence of rats is around $1,000. For decades, small business owners have treated that $200 ticket as a pest control tax. It’s an open secret: owners pay the fine because the cat works.</p><p>The system is broken. The city can’t help because of state law. Owners are stuck paying fines to solve a rat problem the city can’t fix. Inspectors often look the other way because they know the cats are doing a job. But “everyone looks the other way” is not policy. It can change with one aggressive inspector, one bad news cycle, one political shift.</p><p>Legal recognition is the only durable solution.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*rY5wtYjd2hnA9JMSjOZ_rw.png" /></figure><h3>The Fund</h3><p>The rescue community had told me what they actually needed: money. Not a certification program. Not awareness. Cash for vet bills, spay/neuter, emergency care.</p><p>The Mayor’s Office had explained why the city couldn’t run something like that. You can’t officially fund care for animals that aren’t supposed to exist under current law.</p><p>So we did it ourselves.</p><p>In April 2025, we launched the Bodega Cat Fundraiser as a coalition: Bodega Cats of New York, Bodega Cats of Instagram, the Shop Cats Show, and Bodega Cat Spirits. Combined reach of 1.7 million followers. Corporate sponsors signed on: Smalls, Arm & Hammer Cat Litter, Bodega Cat Whiskey, Padhome Pet Services. We built a landing page, ran a coordinated campaign across all four accounts, and asked people to give.</p><p>We raised $7,442 and distributed 100% of it to four rescue organizations doing the actual work: Bronx Tails Cat Rescue, Catstoria Rescue, Sassee Cats, and Bronx Community Cats.</p><p>It wasn’t a structural fix. It was a stopgap. But it proved the community would show up, and it got real money to the people caring for these cats while we waited for the law to catch up.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*lfI-B7RX6KlZTeP9bUQx9Q.png" /></figure><h3>From Moonshot to Movement</h3><p>We pivoted. We stopped just asking for protection, which is legally impossible under current codes, and started advocating for standards.</p><p>If we could get the state to recognize these cats as working animals rather than violations, we could override the health codes that tied the city’s hands.</p><p>Council Member Keith Powers reached out to me on Instagram. I worked with him and his team to refine the idea, and he took it from there.</p><p>Then, right as the bill was gaining traction, our 55,000-follower Instagram account went down. No warning. No recourse. The platform we’d built the entire movement on vanished overnight.</p><p>The petition kept climbing anyway. The bills kept moving. It turned out the idea had already traveled far enough that it didn’t need the account anymore.</p><p>Powers introduced Int. 1471, tackling the enforcement side. The bill stops the city from penalizing stores for having cats and creates voluntary vaccination and spay/neuter programs. It now has six sponsors and bipartisan support. It’s sitting with the Committee on Health, waiting for a hearing.</p><p>At the state level, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal introduced A08341 in May 2025. I found out about it from a friend. Rosenthal’s office didn’t reach out. I didn’t lobby Albany. The bill just appeared.</p><p>That was the moment I realized the conversation had expanded beyond anything I could coordinate. The petition had done what petitions are supposed to do: it made the issue visible enough that people with actual legislative power decided to act.</p><p>Rosenthal has a long record on animal welfare. She championed the ban on cat declawing and the law against selling dogs and cats from puppy mills. If anyone in Albany was going to introduce a bodega cat bill, it was going to be her.</p><p>Her bill requires the State Department of Agriculture and Markets to create official health and safety guidelines for cats in retail food stores. Statewide. Every county. The proposed standards include regular vet check-ups, mandatory spaying or neutering, proper nutrition, and designated “cat zones” separate from food prep and storage.</p><p>On January 7, 2026, the bill was re-referred to the Assembly Agriculture Committee for the new legislative session.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*mlNOh2rous9WCDRsj69I9Q.png" /></figure><h3>Two Bills, One Goal</h3><p>The city bill is a shield. It stops punishment.</p><p>The state bill is authorization. It changes the rule.</p><p>Protection without standards leaves quality of care up to individual owners. Standards without protection still expose owners to fines. The two bills are complementary. If both pass, New York would have the most comprehensive legal framework for working shop cats in the country.</p><h3>What I Learned</h3><p>A petition is a starting point, not an endpoint. Signatures show demand. They don’t change law.</p><p>Talk to the people who will tell you why your idea won’t work. The Mayor’s Office told me what the city couldn’t do. That conversation made the strategy sharper.</p><p>The system is layered. City and state. Health codes and licensing. Enforcement and legislation. You have to understand where the blockers actually are before you can move them.</p><p>Gray areas are not protection. Legal recognition is.</p><p>You don’t have to control everything. You have to start something worth picking up. I didn’t know about the state bill until a friend told me. That’s not a failure. That’s proof the idea traveled.</p><p>Don’t build on rented land. We lost our 55,000-follower Instagram account at a critical moment. The movement survived because it had already spread beyond one platform. But it was a lesson: if your entire operation depends on a platform you don’t control, you’re one algorithmic decision away from losing everything.</p><h3>What We Need Now</h3><p>The state bill is the key. It creates the care standards that make these cats legal workers rather than violations.</p><p>But to pass a state law, we need a partner in the Senate. We have Assembly Member Rosenthal. We do not yet have a Senate sponsor.</p><p>If you live in New York, now is the time to call your State Senator. Tell them there’s a bill in the Assembly that solves the bodega cat problem once and for all, and it needs a champion in the Senate.</p><p>You can track both bills yourself:</p><ul><li>City: Int. <a href="https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7732285&GUID=F2420981-8792-4A2A-88F3-26E1F754B23C">1471–2025</a></li><li>State: <a href="https://legiscan.com/NY/bill/A08341/2025">A08341</a></li></ul><p>Thirteen months ago, there was a petition. Now there are two bills. We proved a moonshot could move City Hall. Now let’s see if we can move Albany.</p><p><a href="https://bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book"><em>Bodega Cats of New York, the book, comes out October 2026.</em></a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=8d45e6aea2f3" width="1" height="1" alt="">

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The Calico of 47th Street. Famous on Google Street View.

<p><em>A Hell’s Kitchen anchor so consistent she has her own history on Google Street View.</em></p><p>Pancha works the flower stand. The bodega is Clinton Fruit Market, on the corner of 47th Street in Hell’s Kitchen. The flower stand out front is Pascal’s Flowers. It spills onto the sidewalk with buckets of roses and lilies. Pancha sits right there among them. Same spot. Every day.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*LFAcTmDyxBg0mYL2qGn3wA.png" /><figcaption>Photo from the book: Bodega Cats of New York</figcaption></figure><p>She came with the shop. She was already there when the current owner arrived.</p><p>She is 16 now. A calico. Spayed.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*IW46h-M6D0pIyMnoDUXIJA.png" /><figcaption>Photo from the book: Bodega Cats of New York</figcaption></figure><p>While most bodega cats stay inside behind the counter or near the registers, Pancha spends her time out front. The avenue never gets quiet. Cabs. Trucks. Tourists walking toward Times Square. She does not move.</p><p>She is so consistent that <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7616904,-73.9904861,3a,74.2y,242.08h,60.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sKIjwKAGHhYzZCXGDA2lQYw!2e0!5s20240901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D29.171588066934483%26panoid%3DKIjwKAGHhYzZCXGDA2lQYw%26yaw%3D242.07912716193175!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDExMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D">Google Street View has caught her multiple times</a>. In one capture, a stranger stopped in the middle of the sidewalk just to pet her. Google’s car photographed the whole thing. Our followers told us she shows up on Street View four different times (we could only find two, can you spot the others?).</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*cZz4BHY8JlIzqILaRw6wcA.png" /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*wXitEAyXNt8u7zCDLoGT6w.png" /><figcaption>Google Street View</figcaption></figure><p>The West 47th Street Block Association nominated her for Best Bodega Cat in the city. She did not win. But her neighbors know what she is.</p><p>When she is not in her usual spot, they text each other. They check. They ask if anyone has seen her.</p><p>That is what happens when a cat stays in one place long enough. She stops being a cat and starts being a landmark. Something the block orients itself around. Something people expect to see when they walk by.</p><p>Pancha is still there. Same corner. Same flowers. Same spot she has claimed for years.</p><p><em>For more stories like this, visit </em><a href="http://bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book"><em>bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book</em></a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=04c08c37eda0" width="1" height="1" alt="">

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Omish: The Bodega Cat Who Proved It Would Work

<p>Omish was our first shoot.</p><p>We did not know if this project was going to work. We had an idea, a camera, and a list of locations people had sent us. But we had never actually done it. We had never walked into a bodega, asked permission, and tried to photograph a cat who had no obligation to cooperate.</p><p>Omish changed that.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/640/1*KISqq_UgchjriyzuqxbB8Q.jpeg" /><figcaption>Photography by Gulce Kilkis, from the book “Bodega Cats of New York”</figcaption></figure><p>He is an orange tabby in Park Slope. He has grown into the role over four years. When we arrived, he was on the counter, watching us the way bodega cats watch everyone: calm, skeptical, waiting to see what we wanted.</p><p>The neighborhood guys were already there. Regulars. They stood around watching us work, waiting to see if the cat would actually pose.</p><p>He did.</p><p>Omish sat on the counter, completely unbothered by the chaos. Gulce moved around him, adjusting angles, getting close, pulling back. He did not flinch. He did not leave. He sat there like he understood exactly what was happening and had decided to allow it.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/960/1*4cGFdo9tauOcItUgo36zyA.jpeg" /><figcaption>Photography by Gulce Kilkis, from the book “Bodega Cats of New York”</figcaption></figure><p>That was the moment I knew this project was going to work.</p><p>Not because Omish was special, though he is. Because he proved something. Bodega cats are not performing for anyone. They are not trained. They do not care about cameras or books or Instagram accounts. But if you approach them right, if you move slow and keep your energy calm, they will let you document them.</p><p>Omish let us.</p><p>The regulars watched the whole thing. A few of them commented. A few laughed. One guy asked what we were doing and nodded when we explained. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s Omish.”</p><p>That is how it works in these stores. The cat is known. The cat has a name. The cat is part of the texture of the place, and the people who come in every day treat him like furniture that happens to breathe.</p><p>We got the shots. We thanked the owner. We left.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/960/1*y29_dfOcJhO80fYd9Y4XRA.jpeg" /><figcaption>Photography by Gulce Kilkis, from the book “Bodega Cats of New York”</figcaption></figure><p>Walking out, I remember thinking: this is going to take years. Every store is different. Every owner has a different level of trust. Every cat has a different tolerance for strangers with cameras. Some will cooperate. Some will hide. Some will swat. But Omish cooperated, and that meant at least some of them would.</p><p>Four years later, we have photographed over 150 bodega cats across all five boroughs. We have been turned away, chased out, and politely declined more times than I can count. But we have also been welcomed, offered tea, shown baby pictures of cats, and told stories that would never fit in a caption.</p><p>It started with Omish.</p><p>He is still there. Still on that counter. Still unbothered. The neighborhood still knows him. The regulars still greet him. He has not changed. The only thing that changed is us. We walked in unsure if this would work. We walked out knowing it would.</p><p>Every project has a first moment. The moment where the idea stops being theoretical and starts being real. For us, that moment was an orange tabby in Park Slope who sat still long enough for Gulce to get the shot.</p><p>Omish did not know he was launching anything. He was just being a bodega cat. That turned out to be enough.</p><p><em>All photography by Gulce Kilkis</em></p><p><strong><em>I’m putting together a book on these cats. Sixty stores, all five boroughs. Updates at </em></strong><a href="http://www.bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book"><strong><em>www.bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book</em></strong></a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=046190ac5b30" width="1" height="1" alt="">

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