Forget education, forget murder, forget stop and frisk. No, one of the very first things Mayor de Blasio has vowed to do is to rid New York City of that modern day scourge commonly known as the horse drawn carriage.
Kudos. Great job. Way to prioritize.
De Blasio, in conjunction with an organization called NYCLASS proposes to replace the 68 medallioned carriages with antique styled electric cars, driven by the same carriage drivers. But wouldn't that then make these cars taxis? Hey, NYC taxi drivers are bad enough, now we're going to add another 70 or so horse drivers to their ranks? Sounds like a plan.
As it turns out, NYCLASS and Bill de Blasio are such close political bedfellows because NYCLASS is so very anti-Christine Quinn. NYCLASS spent over $120,000 on an anti-Christine Quinn phone and leaflet campaign for the September primary election. They also made a hefty donation to "New York is Not for Sale," an anti-Quinn group. With Quinn (de Blasio's only real Democratic competition) off the ticket, de Blasio became a lock as the Democratic candidate for mayor.
NYCLASS bills itself as an animal rights group, but really is a group solely devoted to banning the horse drawn carriage industry in NYC. On the entire NYCLASS website, there's only three short paragraphs devoted to the health and well being of carriage horses, and nothing at all about any other creatures, which seems pretty sparse for an organization whose mission is to "Get Political for Animals". And although they purport to advocate for 10 other animal issues, there is next to nothing about any of those causes on their website.
I'm no Woodward or Bernstein, but you don't have to dig too deep to find out that the co-founder and President of NYCLASS, Steve Nislick, is also the CEO of Edison Properties, a real estate company that owns parking lots, office buildings, and mini storage spaces.
Waaaait a second... if you do away with the carriage horses then you won't need stables. And if you don't need stables, then 4 pieces of prime real estate on the West Side are suddenly freed up for development. And if you replace the carriages with electric cars, you're going to need somewhere to park those cars. And if an organization run by the CEO of a big real estate development firm that builds and manages parking facilities and who helped Bill de Blasio get elected is a major proponent of eliminating the carriage industry... what an incredible coincidence!
No, this doesn't sound political to me at all.
Hey, I'm not the only person to make this real estate connection. The New York Times just ran a piece in their editors blog, in which Andrew Rosenthal notes that
"...one of the big driving forces hiding behind the anti-cruelty front of the anti-carriage campaign are real estate developers. Is it possible they want to turn the stables in prime Manhattan locations into far more lucrative condos?"Carriage horses in New York City are generally healthy and well treated. The New York Times visited the Clinton Park Stables and found it to have large stalls, flowing water and plenty of hay. An independent audit of the carriage horse industry commissioned by the NYC Comptrollers office in 2007 concluded that:
"Neither the ASPCA inspector nor the DOHMH veterinarian consultant found any serious violations regarding the health and safety of the horses when we accompanied them to the stables."Even the ASPCA is "...not opposed to the use of horses and other equines in pulling carts and carriages for hire, provided that all of the animals' physiological and behavioral needs are fully met." There is nothing inhumane about a horse pulling a carriage. Horses have been pulling us and our crap around for thousands of years.
In the mid 19th century, the streets of NY literally teemed with horses, 100,000 to 200,000 of them, horses that pulled omnibuses, streetcars, delivery vans, all the while breathing the smoke from omnipresent coal fires, and whatever else happened to be burning at the time. They were frequently whipped and abused to urge them to pull heavy loads. Overworked horses frequently died on city streets; in 1880 NYC removed 15,000 dead horses from its streets. Sometimes a large carcass would simply be left to rot. The life expectancy of a streetcar horse in the the 1800's was 4 years.1
Horses are capable of pulling 2-3 times their own body weight on wheels over paved ground pretty much all day long. Even fully loaded, a carriage is quite easy for a large horse to pull.2 NYC carriage horses work 10 hour days, with a 15 minute break for every two pulling hours. They are not permitted to work when the temperature is over 90º or below 19º and they must be covered with blankets during the winter months while awaiting riders. Compared to his 19th century brethren, the life of a modern carriage horse sounds pretty darn humane.
Do carriage horses breathe automobile exhaust and tailpipe emissions? Yes, but so do garbage men, road crews, Con Ed repairmen, and you and I when we walk down the street or go for a run along the FDR drive. And as far as safety, according to NYCLASS there have been over 18 horse drawn carriage accidents in the past two years. I don't know what "over 18" means. Does it mean 18½? 19? 50? Why not just say the number? In 2012 in Manhattan alone, there were 9,290 injuries and 51 fatalities in accidents involving motor vehicles or bicycles, which by comparison makes a horse drawn carriage seem like the safest form of travel ever invented.
This is why electing a billionaire as mayor is not a terrible idea. Rich guys like Michael Bloomberg, who fund their own campaigns and do not need to make deals with individuals or organizations in return for hefty campaign donations are beholden to no one. They can proceed with doing what's best for the city and its inhabitants without worrying about fulfilling a promise to a labor union or other special interest group. All I know is, I can't remember the last time I left a bar or restaurant reeking of second hand smoke, and I don't miss it. Thanks Mike.
And maybe for the last 12 years, New Yorkers got used to that, got a little spoiled, and forgot that that's the way the political machine works. But that is how the machine works, and now Bill de Blasio owes NYCLASS and Steve Nislick a big fat favor.
And this is it.
1 Factual information on the life of horses in NYC from "The Horse and the Urban Environment" http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/578.html and "When Horses Posed a Public Health Hazard" http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/when-horses-posed-a-public-health-hazard/?_r=0
2 "The 12 Most Common Carriage Horse Myths Debunked" http://www.equiculture.org/carriage-horse-myths.aspx
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you had me until you made a big deal out of the potential business of parking spots for 70 electic cars. Hey, if it was parking for 700 cars - maybe. But parking for 70 cars is minimal business. And the electic cars may be parked inside Central Park, like many other vehicles.
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