Witness to History: Nancy Plum on Kittens in the Kimmel

By Nancy Plum

Things were hopping when the Kimmel Center first opened in December 2001. A star-studded two-night gala featured Elton John, Paul Anka (singing with Sidney Kimmel!), and a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax, and The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. More than 2,000 patrons dined under the Kimmel’s vaulted glass roof each night and celebrated the “jewel of the Avenue of the Arts.” A sublime performance of the Suite No. 2 from Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe with the Orchestra and the Philadelphia Singers Chorale closed out the Saturday night gala but little did anyone know that amidst the tuxedos and gowns, applause and accolades, a family of felines had infiltrated the building and set up a kitty nursery on the Second Tier, where the original restaurant was located.

In the first full week the Kimmel was open, music lovers attended a myriad of public events and concerts, including performances by the resident companies, master classes, and tours of the facility. In the middle of that week, soprano superstar Audra McDonald presented a master class in the Rendell Room on the First Tier. As I listened to her demonstrate her stellar vocal technique, my concentration was interrupted by then-Kimmel President Leslie Miller (a long-time animal advocate) discreetly whispering to me, “There’s a cat in the ladies’ room—go rescue it.” Sure enough, in the First-Tier ladies’ room was a rather thin, mostly black-and-white cat cowering in one of the stalls. Leslie gave me her overcoat and instructions to hide the cat in her office on the 9th floor of 260 South Broad Street, which is where the Kimmel staff worked at the time. Not one to deny presidential orders, I snuck kitty past the guard desk and up the elevator to the offices.

A cat in the office was certainly a way to break up the weekday routine, and as staff gathered around to see, programming manager Lilly Schwartz offered to take her home. One would think that might be the end of the story, but it was quite apparent that somewhere, this stray kitty had left behind a litter of kittens—and the hunt was on.

It did not take long for patrons of the restaurant to send in messages that mewing could be heard from the walls on the Second Tier. On the Friday before Christmas, construction workers took apart a section of the wall and brought us a box of three kittens—one orange-and-white, one black-and-white, and one grey-and-white. With their eyes still unopened, it was clear that they were not much more than a week old. They snuggled into a towel from my car, and with the initial names of Manny, Yo-Yo, and Itzhak (after the soloists of the Beethoven Triple Concerto), the question became “what next?” What can be done with week-old, still-nursing kittens four days before Christmas?

Kittens that young cannot eat commercial cat food; what they need is a milk replacement substitute if separated from the mother. Fortunately, we were able to identify a vet tech at the Cat Doctor on 22nd Street who offered to properly care for the kittens, and armed with cans of a kitten milk replacer, off they went for the Christmas holidays.

The next day Leslie Miller called me at home as I was preparing to come to the Kimmel and help man a membership desk, with the message that “I understanding you found kittens—those kittens get Ritz Carlton treatment!” For the next six to eight weeks, the Kimmel foot the bill for the vet tech to take herself and the kittens back and forth to work (that many cats were not allowed on public transportation) and the replacement milk and kitten food necessary to keep them healthy (I never did find out what the auditor had to say about that!). I visited them once a week, catching up on their progress, including that Manny the orange kitten opened his eyes on Christmas Day.

In the early months of 2002, the kittens were ready for new homes. Lilly Schwartz took the black-and-white one, reporting back that the mother cat immediately recognized it as her kitten. A friend of the vet tech adopted the grey-and-white one, and the orange-and-white one, now called Max, went home with Lisa Nardo, Leslie’s executive assistant. Their monikers may have changed, but some connections remained between the kittens and the performers for whom they were named. Several seasons later when Emanuel Ax was playing a concert at the Kimmel, a friend of mine told him the story and showed a picture of his feline namesake.

The orange-and-white kitten came to live with me when he was a year old. Manny Max Kimmel Cat lived until 2018, a handsome reminder of the exciting early days of the Kimmel Center.