NYC kitten, rescued after hurricane, finds a home
Nov 13, 2013, 6:32 PM
NEW YORK (AP) – They’re two of a kind.
A stray kitten that spent a year recuperating with an animal rescue group after getting plucked from the streets of a flood-ravaged section of Brooklyn has finally been adopted _ by a fellow Superstorm Sandy refugee.
The little white cat, named Joy, was the last of nearly 300 stray and displaced pets that wound up in an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter after the storm.
This week, she was getting used to her new home with Robert Curran, whose home and family business on New York City’s Rockaway Peninsula were also partially destroyed.
Curran said he reached out to the ASPCA after The Associated Press wrote about the group’s attempt to find Joy a permanent home.
“She looked like she just needed some love and affection and a happy place to be,” said Curran. “I said, `You know what? I’m rebuilding my life. This cat needs help too,'”
Joy was probably about 6-months-old when she was found, skinny and skittish, on the streets of Brooklyn’s Gravesend section last November. After the emergency shelter closed, she lived at the ASPCA’s offices in Manhattan. The organization didn’t initially put her up for adoption because she was initially terrified around people. By the storm’s anniversary last month, she was playful and eating treats out of people’s hands.
Meanwhile, Curran relocated from the Queens seashore to Brooklyn after Sandy’s tidal surge pushed several feet of water into the P.J. Curran Bar & Grill, which his family has owned for decades. His apartment, above the bar, lost its heating and electrical systems. The place still hasn’t reopened, and Curran said he doesn’t know if it ever will.
“We’re dealing with insurance issues. We’re dealing with the future of the block,” he said. “Remember, you’re talking about putting an entertainment business back in an area where everyone lost their life savings … Who has money to go out on a Friday night?”
Still, Curran’s a survivor. And, so far, Joy has proven to be one, too.
“She’s adorable,” he said, adding that the transition has gone smoother than expected. “I expected not to see her for two weeks. But she’s been fine.”
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