Without the determination of Thunder-and-Lightening—his friends called him “Boom-und-Blitz” or just “Boom” for short—the Lincoln Tunnel would never have been completed and millions of commuters would still be trapped in New Jersey. Thunder-and-Lightening, a gray short-hair with incredibly strong forepaws, worked in West Virginia coal mines until he and his family moved to Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1930s. 

Naturally attracted to the excavations under the Hudson River, Thunder-and-Lightening repeatedly volunteered for dangerous duty with the dynamite crew. When the last few feet of the tunnel were about to be blasted open, linking the borings from either side deep under the Hudson River, the intrepid cat clawed the holes where the dynamite sticks were placed and carried the fuse from charge to charge with his mouth. He was the first in the crew, too, to run back into the tunnel after the smoke and dust cleared and emerged triumphantly on the other side, looking no grayer than when he went in. 

Unfortunately, Thunder-and-Lightening was forgotten in the subsequent celebration, and began to frequent taverns and drink heavily. Plans to dedicate a statue in his honor never materialized because the country’s attention was diverted by the rise of Adolf Hitler and some people mistakenly believed Thunder-and-Lightening was German.