"You can both celebrate them and advocate for them at the same time."
This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund, OcuTrap, and Drop Traps: Beginning and Advanced Certification Workshop.
Dan Rimada didn't set out to start a movement. He just started noticing cats. During the stillness of COVID, when New York City slowed down enough to actually look around, he began noticing the cats living in the bodegas of his Fort Greene, Brooklyn neighborhood and photographing them on his iPhone. What began as a hyper-local Instagram project quickly grew into something much larger — a citywide archive, an advocacy platform, a walking tour company, and now a forthcoming book. Today, Bodega Cats of New York is the most detailed documentation of working cats in New York City corner stores ever assembled, built on four years of relationship-building across all five boroughs.
At the heart of Dan's work is a real tension: bodega cats are beloved New York City cultural icons — neighborhood anchors, pest controllers, familiar faces — and they are technically illegal. Under current New York City Health Code, keeping a live animal in a food establishment can result in fines between $200 and $1,500. Dan's 14,000-signature petition changed that conversation. It led to City Council legislation that would eliminate those fines and fund spay/neuter and vaccinations for bodega cats — with Council Member Frank Morano now carrying the bill forward after Keith Powers was term-limited out. A parallel state-level bill, introduced by Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, goes further, establishing official care standards: designated cat zones, clean water, nutritious food, rest areas, and mandatory spay/neuter. The two bills are designed to work in tandem.
Dan also co-founded Cats About Town Tours with cat historian Peggy Gavan, whose blog hatchingcatnyc.com and books on New York City's animal history made her the perfect partner. The tours run through Brooklyn Heights, the Lower East Side, and the Financial District, uncovering the hidden feline history of New York from the 1800s and 1900s — and every ticket sold triggers food donations to a 501(c)(3) cat rescue. His book, Bodega Cats of New York, featuring photography by Gulce Kilkis, arrives from Quarto Publishing in October 2026.
Press Play Now For:
- How a COVID-era iPhone project in Fort Greene grew into New York City's most comprehensive bodega cat archive
- What a bodega actually is — and why working cats have been part of that culture for generations
- Why bodega cats are currently illegal under NYC Health Code, and what the legislation would change
- The two-pronged legislative strategy: the city council bill and the state-level Assembly bill, and how they work together
- How Dan's $7,400 fundraiser and 14,000-signature petition translated into real legislative action
- The spay/neuter and vaccination funding mechanism proposed in the city bill — and where the money could come from
- Why some rescue groups want an outright ban on bodega cats, and Dan's more pragmatic take
- The story behind Cats About Town Tours and the hidden cat history woven into New York City's streets
- What to expect from the Bodega Cats of New York book, coming October 2026
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