The War on Buggies
Animal rights activists have been trying to ban horse-drawn carriages in Central Park for several months now. (For some reason, they think the practice amounts to animal cruelty.) But now they've come up with an alternative: They're proposing that the city replace the horse-drawn buggies with replica of Model Ts. Tourists visiting from Iowa will still get to feel like they're stepping back in time, and because the vehicles will be powered by electricity, it'll be entirely eco-friendly, too! Aside from the grim aesthetic implications—"the sound of clopping hooves is one of the only aural pleasures available on the edge of the oasis that is Central Park," Michael Gross points out today—and the fact the proposal would put hundreds of carriage drivers out of work, PETA has managed to line up support from attention-loving City Councilmember Daniel Garodnick, who now says he plans to put the matter before the City Council this spring.
But allow us to propose a third path: Why not just replace the horses with groups of unemployed New Yorkers in tap shoes? The charming patter of hooves will be preserved, hundreds of New Yorkers will gain employment, and we can't imagine PETA activists—who are usually more worried about the welfare of animals rather than that of human beings—will have any objection.
