January | 2014 | Amusing the Zillion

Archive for January, 2014

Coney Island Bunny Rescued After 21 Days on The Run

Posted in Animals, tagged bunny, community garden, Coney Island, House Rabbit Society, iStar Financial, rabbit, Rabbit Rescue and Rehab, William Leung on January 18, 2014| 8 Comments »

Runaway Bunny Netted in Coney Island by William Leung of Rabbit Rescue and Rehab. January 18, 2014

The runaway bunny from the bulldozed Coney Island Community Garden was finally rescued today after 21 days surviving on its own. “Just caught it, here is a bunny ball!” said William Leung in a text message with an accompanying photo at 4pm on Saturday. He named the rabbit Steeplechase, after the famous amusement park.

Coney Island was of course named Conyne Eylandt –Rabbit Island– by the Dutch after the wild rabbits that lived here in the 17th century. But this white bunny with black ears is a Californian breed of domestic rabbit and has lived her entire life outdoors in the boardwalk garden. “It’s a girl, 7.8 lbs, all those carrots!” Leung said. After the rabbit ran off when the garden was bulldozed by developer iStar on December 28, she was seen intermittently, usually after dark.

Leung, a volunteer with Rabbit Rescue and Rehab, the New York City chapter of the House Rabbit Society, has spent the last 10 days trying to catch the elusive bunny with the help of gardener Carolyn McCrory “I’m exhausted,” he said when ATZ phoned on Saturday morning to ask how it was going. The Queens resident has been traveling once or twice daily from Astoria to Coney Island to leave food, water and shelter in an attempt to befriend and net the rabbit before the bitter cold temps return. Fellow rabbit owner Mindy Jackson also helped to feed the rabbit during the ten day ordeal.

Coney Island Bunny hiding out. January 16, 2013. Photo © William Leung

If you’re wondering How to Catch a Stray Bunny, Rabbit Rescue and Rehab says it may take several attempts before the bunny is comfortable enough to let you anywhere near him. Among the suggestions: “Sit or lie down and have carrots and alfalfa hay and banana on hand. Do not overfeed the bunny and do not leave these treat items behind for him—you want him to crave these special foods and you want him to associate them with only you. You also do not want him to gorge on them and thus not be interested when you return to try to catch him again.”

While the banana worked like a charm with another bunny, the Coney Island coney was Leung’s most difficult rescue yet, he says. First of all, the rabbit kept returning to its former home in the bulldozed garden but the site managers for amphitheater developer iStar Financial would not allow Leung access to the site, claiming liability issues. People who came to feed the feral cats inadvertently upset his plan to herd the bunny when they cut holes in the mesh fence for the cats, which the bunny also used to escape. After neighbors harassed him on Thursday, Leung grew increasingly frustrated with the situation, but said he would go out again this weekend. Luckily, he was successful today.

Rabbit Rescue and Rehab is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization whose primary goals are to rescue abandoned rabbits and find permanent indoor homes for them as well as to educate the public and assist humane societies. “We’re the primary bunny rescue group that works with ACC,” says Leung, referring to New York City’s Animal Care and Control. “Our volunteers go there every day to feed the rabbits.”

Annie Oakley & Buffalo Bill ‘Star’ in Wild West Show Auction

Posted in Auction, film, Photography, tagged Annie Oakley, Barbara Stanwyck, Buffalo Bill, cabinet card, movie poster, Photo Album, Wild West, Wild West Show, William F. Cody on January 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

La Gloire de Cirque, French movie poster for ‘Annie Oakley,” 1935. High Noon Western Americana

This striking Belgian movie poster titled La Gloire du Cirque for the 1935 RKO film Annie Oakley is currently up for auction at High Noon Western Americana. Barbara Stanwyck starred as the sharpshooting “Queen of the Roaring Eighties” who joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1885. The January 25th sale is in Mesa, Arizona, with online bidding available via Live Auctioneers.

While the Hollywood movie was a fictionalized account of Annie Oakley’s career, authentic photos and memorabilia documenting Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show will be on the auction block at the January 31st sale of the Garlow Collection of William F. Cody Family Photographs and related ephemera. Most of the items in the sale at Cowan’s Auctions are descended directly in the family of Patricia Garlow, the great-granddaughter of William “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill in Irma Cody’s Wild West Show Album , Cowan’s Auctions, January 31, 2014

Cody was the first president of the Showmen’s League of America and one of the first international entertainers. His daughter Irma Cody’s Wild West Show Photo Album is among the rarest items in the auction and has a pre-sale estimate of $4,000-$6,000. The album features photos of Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley as well as trick ropers, cavalrymen, musicians, show managers and sideshow performers congregating among their tents.

Sideshow Performers in Irma Cody’s Wild West Show Album , Cowan’s Auctions, January 31, 2014

This cabinet photograph of Annie Oakley wearing a chest full of shooting medals was taken by Stacy of Brooklyn in 1894. In May, the Wild West built a huge grandstand on Third Avenue between 36th and 37th Streets at Ambrose Park, where the show “delighted twenty thousand,” according to the The New York World.

Annie Oakley Cabinet Photograph by Stacy , Brooklyn, NY. Cowan’s Auctions, January 31, 2014

Buffalo Bill’s great Wild West Show opened at Ambrose Park, South Brooklyn, yesterday afternoon, in a blaze of glory and amid a shower of ringing coin thrown by the 20,000 people who occupied seats in the grand stands.

Col. Cody had unquestionably in this exhibition surpassed all his former efforts in the show line, and to miss seeing his Congress of Rough Riders of the World, in their most wonderful and daring feats of horsemanship, which, by the way, are perfectly natural, and contain no circus play, is to miss one of the finest educational exhibitions ever given…

The entertainment consisted further of rifle shooting by the celebrated woman rifle shot, Miss Annie Oakley; horse races between a cowboy, Cossack, Mexican, Arab and Indian on the horses of their native lands; an exhibition of the famous old pony express, an immigrant train attacked by Indians on the plains, exhibitions of horsemanship by Riffian Arabs, cowboys, Mexicans, and others; hurdle races, races between Indian boys on ponyback, the battle of the Little Big Horn, illustrating Custer’s last stand; the attack on the Deadwood coach and settlers’ cabins by Indians; buffalo hunts, a military musical drill, the cavalrymen of all nations, and Col. Cody’s wonderful exhibitions of sharp-shooting at glass balls with a rifle while riding at full speed.

The New York World, May 13, 1894

Coney Cat Rescued from Brooklyn Cyclones Office Ceiling

Posted in Animals, tagged Brooklyn Cyclones, cat, cat rescue on January 16, 2014| 3 Comments »

The Brooklyn Cyclones opening day of the 2014 season is 148 days away, but their front office has already gone to bat for a Coney Island cat who took shelter in their ceiling. On Tuesday, Brooklyn Cyclones General Manager Kevin Mahoney tweeted “Really come on there is a cat in my ceiling” after meows were heard above. This photo of the cat perched on the ductwork soon followed.

“What are you going to do? Please don’t call Animal Care and Control,” ATZ tweeted back. “They are a kill shelter. Contact a rescue group.” Mahoney assured us via email they would find a proper home for the cat. “Someone here might keep her,” he said. And here she is, the newest member of the Brooklyn Cyclones family…