RETIRE CARRIAGE HORSES
Posted by West Side Spirit on September 25, 2008 · View Comments
To the Editor:
The carriage horse industry and the horses they exploit should be put out to pasture. This sad spectacle in the heart of 21st-century Manhattan (some heart!) is a relic of the past that should go the way of human slavery. Like the slave owners before them, those who profit from carriage trade contend that their slaves are happy and well treated and, furthermore, they would be worse off if they weren’t under the protection of their benign enslavement.
Now that public concern is growing, we’re seeing threats and violence directed against those working to retire horse-drawn carriages and the slaves who pull them from our streets. It reminds me of New York City in the mid-19th century when the abolitionists opposed to human slavery were subject to attacks and beatings.
Let’s put an end to this blight on our city. Enough already.
Charles Patterson
West End Avenue
For decades I have agreed with Mr. Patterson on this issue, and have considered cruel the treatment of carriage horses in Central Park. (Another example among many: those horses pulling tourists up the hill to Mad Ludwig’s castle in Germany.) The result is only degradation and lack of quality of life to the horse, in exchange for the client’s experience of quaintness. Isn’t it proven that New York has gone far beyond the capability of providing quaintness, and it should no longer be an expectation?