Bone Jovi the cat becomes head of security at Brooklyn Bone Museum

At The Bone Museum in Brooklyn, Bone Jovi has become more than the resident cat. The tuxedo rescue now holds the title of head of security, a job that has turned a museum pet into a public-facing mascot and a steady source of attention for the East Williamsburg institution.

The museum says Bone Jovi came in through a cat adoption event with Best Friends Animal Society and quickly settled into the building. He was chosen after staff saw him as calm, curious and charming, qualities that fit a place built around objects, visitors and a carefully managed sense of identity. Coverage described him as a rescue cat from Georgia who traveled about 900 miles to New York before taking up residence in Brooklyn.

Bone Jovi’s role has grown well beyond a lap cat at the front desk. The museum has described him as a greeter, tour guide, walking feather duster and museum ambassador, a list that captures how fully he has been folded into the institution’s public life. Visitors often find him curled up at the front desk or wandering through exhibits, where he doubles as both a novelty and a fixture. The Bone Museum says he quickly became a fan favorite and a social media darling, turning daily routines inside the museum into shareable moments outside it.

The museum also framed Bone Jovi as a successor, not a one-off attraction. Before him, Chonky Boy served as the museum’s mascot for five years and was ready to retire. The museum says Chonky Boy is now partially blind and mostly deaf, a detail that makes Bone Jovi’s arrival part of a planned handoff rather than a lucky accident. That continuity matters for an institution that depends on visitors not only coming through the door, but also remembering the building as a place with a personality.

A year after Bone Jovi joined The Bone Museum, the museum said he had worked his way up to Head of Security, patrolled exhibits, supervised staff meetings, inspected gift shop inventory, accepted visitor compliments and helped keep morale high. In a city where museums compete for attention as much as foot traffic, Bone Jovi has given the Brooklyn outpost something durable: a face, a story and a reason for people to look twice.