Meet the Turtles That Hibernate in Mini-Fridges and Cruise in Barbie Jeeps—and the New Yorkers Who Can’t Live Without Them

The members of the world’s most dedicated society of turtle aficionados include some of the people you might least expect.

Photo by Rose Marie Cromwell | Edited by Brendan Spiegel

In early June, on a busy Manhattan street, I bumped into Flash Rosenberg, a woman who freelanced for the art magazine I worked at a million years ago. Flash invited me up to her loft and gave me a cup of coffee. She still makes her living as a cartoonist and photographer, and her place was as jam-packed as you would expect a cartoonist/photographer’s loft to be. It was a fun 25 minutes of catch-up, but I had an appointment nearby. As I checked my phone for the time, she raised a finger and asked, “Do you want to meet my boys?”

Flash Rosenberg with one of her turtles (above) and covered in turtle swag (below).

The boys were two turtles floating in a large tank near the bathroom. They were the size of small throw pillows, with big fat necks; they looked like balding middle-aged men with patterns on their backs. “Aren’t they pretty?” Flash asked. And they were, as long as I concentrated on their shells and not on their Don Rickles fac…