Pam’s Pictorama Post: Since cats, both real and cartoon, are more or less my gig I’m surprised that I am only now learning about Bunz, the hardware store tabby, who rules the roost a few blocks away here in our Yorkville neighborhood at a place simply called New York Paint and Hardware. However, it turns out that Bunz is quite the neighborhood celebrity and somehow I have missed him entirely. Kim has had a nodding acquaintance with him on his morning walks, but says that to date, Bunz is usually being petted while getting his morning air so Kim has not actually met to pet him either. Although this establishment is within my territory, I tend to walk by in the evening or run in late in the afternoon of a weekend, I have not seen him. I feel remiss.

There is a strange quality about living in New York which we all accept, but rarely discuss and that is one generally has a set path from your apartment out into the world – an unofficial number of blocks where you shop and eat locally and often you are more devoted to one direction than the other. When running I would hit the tip of the eastern point of the neighborhood and then down the south side which I got to know and because of work, I spend a lot of time walking south on York and First and know it well, but we mostly don’t go south to eat, get take out or shop. (Having previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum I also know the path west intimately but oddly this is a north south thing, not an east west thing.) I speak to people who live on 85th and typically never go north of 86th and I don’t find that unusual.

I have on occasion documented aspects of Friday night take out stroll here at Deitch Studio. (See my pre-pandemic post which was an ode to local take out and a Mexican place we were fond of. Read it here.) This is our walk north most Fridays, often veering west to Second Avenue after a stroll up First. On First I generally like to stop and look in the window of the junk store there. (Some excellent finds from this store have been documented and can be found here and here.) Kim peers a bit at a newish thrift store nearby too. Sometimes the kitties need some food from the pet store on that block and we’ll pick it up on the way.

We tend to fiercely embrace our corner of this Yorkville neighborhood. We mourn the tearing down of a brownstone building resulting in the loss of a nice plant store on the corner, the demise of a take out place. The pandemic made us hyper aware of our neighborhood since we rarely left it for a year, but since then and with the effects of the Q line which opened in 2017, the neighborhood has become more popular and shifted. However, generally speaking it is a good corner of the universe, these few blocks of Manhattan all the way over by the river.

And, since cats are my thing, I like to think I know a bit about where they reside in the nabe – those who sit in apartment windows daily on my path (I’m talking about you Mr. Tuxedo on the first floor of this building), and a smattering of those felines we think of as bodega cats, the working kitties of the area. Interesting to note that, to my knowledge, the few I am thinking of are all tabbies. Perhaps the tiger stripe of cats is the unofficial mascot of the Yorkville working puss? The only one of the three I have met is a charming youngster on York Avenue who lives in a Deli. I’m not sure that his name is known but I did just find him on a Google search while looking for the cat who evidently patrols the Gristedes on York nightly. His pleasure includes a tree outside the deli where pigeons occasionally perch to tempt him.

I only know of the Gristedes cat because someone I used to work with walks his young lab pup there nightly and the dog became fascinated with the cat in the window after hours on late night strolls. They have a joyous spitty, barking, hissy moment nightly. Mark looked into it and evidently found evidence that the cat is identified as an employee on some paperwork he stumble across in a professional capacity (yes, odd, I agree), although when asked his existence is routinely denied. He is a mouser incognito if extraordinaire as technically he is not allowed to live there.

This past Friday night on our way to pick up dinner (from a new place with an extraordinarily large and diverse menu called Soup and Burger on Second), I noticed this t-shirt in the window of the hardware and paint store on the corner of 87th and First. I pointed it out to Kim and we agreed it is well done.

To backtrack a bit, I have lived in Yorkville long enough that I remember a few decades back (30 years evidently) when this store was the new kid on the block. Ostensibly a paint store with a bit of hardware it did not seem especially useful and I ignored it for a long time. It replaced, to my vague memory, an electronics store which repaired televisions and VCR’s and I had utilized that service. (Yep, seriously dating myself here although we actually still own a VCR/DVD player or two, or three.)

Anyway, I don’t know that I darkened their door for years. Slowly however, the hardware aspect took over and it developed a less chain oriented more neighborhood vibe. They are now depended upon for our general local hardware needs (they are the last of several standing) and a look at their website earlier today reveals that I can get my knives sharpened there and I think I will pay them a visit for that. It is funny though how even a chain store can evolve into a neighborhood joint.

So evidently Bunz, this sprightly tabby, rules the roost over there. I suspect that hardware stores must keep some mouse friendly stock which requires the services of such a kitty – planting soil and whatnot. I know of a few Lowe’s and Home Depots that sport Instagram accounts for their flagship cat employees. (Notably there is Leo, another tabby, in a Home Depot in Mt. Laurel, NJ and Francine, a calico mix at a Lowe’s in North Carolina.) Garden supplies and a very old building in the case of our neighborhood store which probably makes it a mousy delight.

We didn’t stop on Friday night but I made a mental note to come back on the weekend so we went on Saturday and yes – they were selling the t-shirts and I realized that there was a big stack, organized by size, on a rack by the window. The Bunz tee cost $20 (Kim paid – thank you Kim!) and I got a large but they run a tad small. I asked about the artist and the young man waiting on me just said Shawn which makes me think maybe it is someone else who works there, a nascent illustrator.

It’s a bold design and has hardware cattitude going for it. Bunz sports workman’s overalls, hightops and shades – a cool cat. Both his overalls and his top (striped like him) have his name. Paws in pockets – he is all business. He appears to have a can of paint and brush in front of him and the sign for the store behind him – a decent rendition of the window looking in. Kim says he would personally have made more of the second color and I tend to agree, but these are artistic choices, right? I hoped that maybe their website or account would have his origin story and perhaps where his name came from but alas, currently not.

So finally I share photos of the real Bunz. He’s clearly a beloved member of the team there and what he might lack in a typical home life seems to be largely made up for by being a working cat with an appreciative following here in Yorkville. Long may he remain at the helm of New York Paint and Hardware.