The clatter of hooves on cobblestones has long been the soundtrack to a romanticised New York, a sepia-tinted postcard hawked to tourists with more dollars than sense. But yesterday, that quaint clip-clop was replaced by the shriek of tyres and the wet thud of tragedy. A 17-year-old girl is dead, her life cut short by what might be the city’s most stubborn anachronism: the horse-drawn carriage. The accident, on a rain-slicked street near Central Park, has once again dragged the buggy industry into the dock of public opinion, though one suspects the only verdict that matters is already writ in the ledger of history.
Let us be clear from the outset: the author has no brief against horses. They are magnificent beasts, albeit with a troubling tendency to deposit their opinions on public highways. The problem, as ever, lies with the humans who have tethered them to a dying dream. The carriage industry, with its lobbyists thicker than stable flies, insists it is part of New York’s ‘heritage.’ So was smallpox. So was Tammany Hall. Heritage is not a free pass to operate a moving death trap in the 21st century.
The details, as they trickle in, are as grim as they are predictable. The horse, spooked by a clatter of trash cans or perhaps the sheer absurdity of its existence, bolted. The carriage, a Victorian relic on rubber wheels, careened into a lamppost, then into the girl. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, a man who had been ferrying tourists through a fantasy of ‘Old New York,’ now faces a reality of grief, lawsuits, and a public relations disaster that no amount of ‘oats and carrots’ sentiment can fix.
This is not an isolated incident. The history of horse-drawn carriages in Manhattan is a litany of tragedy: runaway horses, collisions, exhausted animals collapsing in the street. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, improbably born to rescue horses, now finds itself in the uncomfortable position of defending an industry that routinely breaks its own rules. The horses work in all weather, breathing exhaust fumes, navigating traffic that would fluster a seasoned cabbie. They are not quaint. They are prisoners.
The debate, predictably, will now rage. The carriage lobby will point to jobs and tradition. The activists will point to the body count. The mayor, ever the tightrope walker, will offer condolences and commission a study. But studies do not resurrect teenagers. Studies do not unspook a terrified horse. The only humane solution is a ban, and yet this city, which prides itself on progress, clings to its horse-drawn circus with the desperation of a jilted lover.
In the meantime, the girl’s family has a funeral to plan. The horse has a stable to return to. And New York has a decision to make: does it want to be a global city, or a living museum staffed by sweating animals and desperate men? The answer, one fears, is already written in the blood on the asphalt. Let the clip-clop continue, then. But do not be surprised when the dream ends in a nightmare.
This correspondent, for one, will be taking the subway. It is less romantic, but it has never killed a teenager.
