In New York, the death of a cat exposes the softer side of hard living folk

“You get so hard living here,” he said in a gravelly, mournful voice. “But pets open up that heart center. There is something about the unconditional love; they clean the blues off of you.

“That’s their mission. That’s why a lot of New Yorkers have pets.”

SHOOT: It's wonderful to see people's capacity for empathy. It is actually heart wrenchingly sad when an animal that gives so freely of its trust (in a world where animals run the gamut) lives a life that touches so many, and then, after 22 years, is gone and people feel that vacuum. I think we miss a tremendous amount when we deprive ourselves of ordinary contact with nature.

Where I live, I've made friends with a white cat. He's here, he comes around, it seems, for company. A beautiful white catwith a black tail. Nice to have around except it sometimes miaows a high pitched miaow and then carries on and on. When he's calm it's nice to have him sitting at the fire, at peace with the world. Imagine a person doing that, coming over, unannounced, just asking for some attention, and warmth by the fire (and with nothing to say, no opinion to raise).

clipped from www.nytimes.com Pretty Boy, believed to have been about 22 years old, was a local fixture for over a decade, making his rounds on the south side of the block between First Avenue and Avenue A, as shops opened and closed and renters moved in and out. His death last month, of natural causes, unleashed a storm of emotion. A business owner broke into tears at his mention. One young resident wept through a rehearsal for her kindergarten graduation. And Herbie, a disheveled supermodel of a cat who used to live with Pretty Boy at Mikey’s Pet Shop, has retreated behind bags of cat litter to grieve privately. “Every day I cry,” said Betty Knapp, who used to work at Mikey’s Pet Shop. Pretty Boy used to rest on her chest when her blood pressure rose, she said, and it helped to calm her down. Now, she bursts into sobs when she talks about him. “He knew he was the man. He was the man on East Seventh Street. Everybody just loved him.” “She really loved him,” Ms. Malytska said. “He was a part of Seventh Street.”