Horses have lived in the West Side Livery Stable since before the Civil War, the stable is engulfed by massive and rapidly encroaching development, it is as rich in character and history as it is stepped in controversy. I got to walk around there today.
This photo of Merlin, a carriage horse working out of the Clinton Park Stables on the West Side of Manhattan.
Maria and I got up at 4:30 this morning, drove to Albany, took a train to New York City, then a cab to the Clinton Park Stables, and after that the West Side Livery Stables, focal points of the very powerful campaign to shut down the stables and ban the horses from New York and Central Park. I needed to go, I have been writing about the horses for a couple of weeks, I am drawn to this story – as a writer, really, I am not a factor in the political life of New York City, nor would I ever want to be, I don’t live there. I am so grateful Maria gave up her day to come with me, it was a long and tiring day, we got home around eight o’clock this evening, it was a good thing for me to have done.
I thought a lot about why I was going today. The writer’s job is to listen and feel, to capture the emotions of things, to step back as far as he can go and try to grasp the truth of what he is seeing and feeling. It is not simply to take sides or join groups, although writing sometimes leads to that. Fortunately, I have lived so long as an outsider it is not conceivable for me to be part of any group, at one point or another, almost everyone in every group wants to throw me off of a bridge, this is as it should be, where an honest writer belongs. I find the horse and dog snobs just as annoying as the people who hate human beings in the name of loving animals, neither group would have me for a second.
In our world, in the world of social media, thinking isn’t simple to do, other people’s messages and ideas and arguments rain down on me like neutron bombardments in a physics lab. The obsession with “left” and “right” kills thought and civil argument, it is mostly a cancer.
People tell me what they think, what I ought to think, what I might think and shouldn’t think. It is, as a result, difficult to think. The fate of the Central Park Carriage Horses is an intense thing, filled with history, emotions, the awful struggle and sorry history of animals to live with us in our world, and who gets to speak for them and protect their rights. The outcome has enormous consequences for anyone who loves animals and truly cares about their rights. I can hardly think of a more important story for animals in my years of writing about them.
New York City is an important place, and what happens to these horses in one of the world’s most important cities could well decide whether we find ways to rise to a great challenge – to keep animals in our greedy, confused and developed world or surrender to the challenges and sacrifices of living with them. The outcome may well set a template for giving up on then and finally driving them from our midst for good. More than anything else, I went to New York to hear the voices of the horses, caught, as animals always seem to be, in the middle of people and events beyond their imagination.
On the ride down, I got to think about why I was going down to New York, and on the way back about what I had seen, heard and most importantly, sensed and felt. I looked at the horses, touched them, watched them interact with people and one another, Iistened for their messages, shook hands, smelt and walked the buildings, took 500 photos, I looked people in the eye and took a cue from the animals – I let my instincts work. As a reporter, and now an author, they have always worked for me, I know I am never infallible, I have no illusions I am always right. I can only be honest about what I see and feel.
I saw a lot of beautiful horses, talk to a number of the people who own and ride them, walked around their stables for hours until I felt myself getting overloaded by images and words. A lot to digest. I am grateful to Christina Hansen – she is the liason for the Horse and Carriage Association of New York City, she drives a carriage several days a week – for inviting me to see the stables. Whatever the fate of the horses, whatever the issues involving their care, I can tell you that Christina is no greedy, heartless animal capitalist or abuser. If you saw the pain in her eyes when she recounts the names she is called or the chants shouted at her on the streets of New York, you would understand that nothing in life is simple or black and white.
Christina is as pure an animal lover as I have encountered. Compassion begins by putting ourselves in the shoes of others, it never lives amidst anger and cruelty – to animals or people. When we stop seeing one another as human beings, a bit of humanity and compassion dies, the welfare of animals is lost in our own swollen egos. This story rends the heart in so many ways.
Christina is a former history professor and lifelong horse lover who first rode horse carriages in Philadelphia. I hope to return to New York City in the next week or so to ride in her carriage and try and grasp what that experience is like, for me, the drivers, the horses.
I don’t want to write about what I saw and felt tonight, I am too tired, spent and reeling from images and thoughts, I want to live with today for a bit and then share what I feel. When I write, I see how emotional I am sometimes, even though I am rarely conscious of it. I want to sort through my hundreds of photos and see what they show. I didn’t go to New York to make judgments or reach grand conclusions, there are plenty of people doing that, but my head is spinning.
I want to thank the thousands of people who have e-mailed me, messaged me, shared my posts about the horses thousands of times, posted on Facebook and other social media about my writing, linked to my blog, thanked me, encouraged me to keep writing. I was reminded again in New York of how widely read the blog is, how much of a force it has become. I am humbled and grateful for that. The Central Park horses seem to be a very powerful. People who love animals are following this story all over the world, much to my surprise, I am eager to share what I saw and felt today.
