I put the question to my sister who just retired from teaching elementary school in Houston, TX. She loved kids books and bought hundreds of them with her own money for her school kids. This is what she came up with. I'm not sure if it sounds 100% like your description, but here goes . . . she wondered if it could be:
Captains of the City Streets
A Jenny's Cat Club Book
Esther Averill
1-59017-174-8
ISBN13/EAN 978-1590-17174-5
$16.95
Trade Cloth
176pp, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
B&W illustrations throughout
Children's Books
JUVENILE FICTION / Classics
Ages 6 & up
Fall 2005
New York Review Children's Collection
Description:
Captains of the City Streets is another trip into the world of the legendary Cat Club of Greenwich Village. Two adventurous young catsâSinbad and the Dukeâare best friends who share a "trampish love of the free and easy life." They travel together, away from the tall buildings of the north, in search of a home where they can practice the skip and shuffle of their boxing technique. Along they way, they meet Patchy Pete, a wise old cat, who tells them about the perfect place in the city for cats, "Little Old New York." Since mischievous cats were long ago driven from the neighborhood, Sinbad and the Duke must try to win hearts in this catless part of the city. With luck, they find themselves proud residents of their very own homeâan abandoned shack in an overgrown garden. Their hard times are far from over, however. Food is scarce until one man, an old sea captain new to the neighborhood, notices them and becomes their "Master of the Supper Nook." When the duo follow him home, to thank him, they witness one of the first meetings of the infamous Cat Club. The pet cats Madame Butterfly, Concertina, Solomon the Wise, and the President are all here. Sinbad and the Duke decide they don't need the rules and obligations of membership in any Club. But as they join in its business and frolics, they come to see that perhaps the Club needs them.
Ready for any challenge, Sinbad and the Duke, the Captains of the City Streets, charm the Cat Club's admirers with their free spirits and "nifty" street smarts, as they grow up and ultimately find friendship and a place where they belong.
Excerpt:
From Chapter 1, "At The Trampsâ Last Stop"
It was a night in early spring. The moon shone bright in a starry sky. And below, in the city, a pair of raggedy young cats trudged wearily down the sidewalk of the last block of the broad highway. They were the tramp cats, Sinbad and The Duke.
Sinbad and The Duke were thin and bony, big young cats. Their darkish fur was speckled by rough weather. Sinbad had a yellow ear and a spiky tail. Except for this ear and tail, these tramps looked much alike.
Sinbad and The Duke were much alike in other respects. Both cats had been born and raised here in New York City, and together they had planned this journey. They had set forth on the journey together and had stuck together through thick and thin. And all the long while they had continued to share the high hope of the journeyâs final success.
Right now they were hungry â so hungry that they could think of nothing but something to eat. Thus, when they came to the square where the broad highway and its roaring traffic ended, they walked around the square to the south side. There they found the narrow street on whose corner stood the restaurant known in the cat world as The Trampsâ Last Stop. Sinbad and The Duke had heard from other tramps that at this eating place a cat was sure to get a handout. Handouts were those gifts of food supplied to tramps by kindly humans. Handouts helped to keep alive the homeless cats of the city.
Sinbad and The Duke peered cautiously into the backyard of The Trampsâ Last Stop . . .
http://www.pgw.com/catalog/search.asp?ISBN=1590171748