Cat named “Lazybones”

Cat named “Lazybones,” circa 1910, V1981.15.182; Ralph Irving Lloyd lantern slides, V1981.15; Brooklyn Historical Society.

The photo of the week depicts a cat named “Lazybones,” likely in the backyard of a Park Slope home, around 1910. I often come across a similar scene in my Brooklyn neighborhood of Ditmas Park, with cats spotted on porches, fences, hidden in bushes, and peering out of windows. This photograph comes from the Ralph Irving Lloyd lantern slide collection. Lloyd photographed several neighborhood cats in this collection, with a variety of names including, “Puss,” “Alert,” and “Well.”

The Ralph Irving Lloyd lantern slide collection consists of roughly 400 black-and-white lanterns slides documenting 19^th and 20^th century street scenes in Brooklyn, as well historical houses, churches, homesteads, and schools in Brooklyn. Ralph Irving Lloyd was a Brooklyn ophthalmologist and an avid amateur photographer. He resided in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn at 14 8^th Avenue (near Flatbush Avenue). To view more photographs from this collection, check out this gallery.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org