Street people have always been a fixture of Manhattan streets, even as the borough has become too expensive for most middle and lower-class people to be able to live in. Neighborhoods like Harlem, the East and West Villages, have become so gentrified one bedroom apartments are rented for more than $2,000.
The presence of homeless people on the streets is no longer controversial, it is an accepted fact of life. And more and more, I see people soliciting money sitting with what they call “charity dogs,” dogs that draw attention and sympathy – and money. Watching the crowds go by, I saw one person after another spot the dog and smile, or say “awwwww” and reach into their pockets for some money. This man’s cup was full.
In general, I am reluctant to give money to street people, I know it is often used for things that do not make life better. But I gave him a dollar, I felt it was for the dog. And for the photo.
If you go to Central Park and watch the children come to see and touch the horses, then you will get to the heart of it, you will either see the magic of the horses, or you will not. You will get the point; you will hear the lost and ignored voices of the children and see the smiles of the lovers and visitors and passersby.
In all the raging arguments, it is easy to forget the point of all this. The children will show you, they come up to the horses all day, one after another, their eyes glowing and wide, their hands reaching out to touch. The horses talk to them, you can see that too, the children are pure, they can still hear the horses and feel their magic.
There is not a child in this world who would prefer to ride in an electric car instead of a horse. Just ask any that you know.
The children are the forgotten people in this long-running drama, along with the lovers and visitors and tourists and the cell phone photographers and the beaming people walking their dogs, and the harried office workers who look at the horses and smile, and the old woman who brings a bag of carrots along on her walk every morning through the park, and the waving people on the buses and in the taxicabs. These are the other victims, the ones you will never hear or see. They do not have enough money to give to the politicians so that they can be heard, they are not loud and angry enough to catch the eyes of the TV producers.
But let’s listen to one child, her name is Evita, and I met her Sunday in Central Park. Voice is not about sound, it is about agency, identify, empowerment, the ability to be heard and to make an impact on the world around you. It is about being respected. The children in the park have as much right to be heard as anyone, they have a great deal to say, not always or even often in words.
What does it mean to them if the horses are driven from the city?
Evita may be able to tell you, if you can listen to her, she showed me. The mayor will never come to speak to Evita, the animal demonstrators will never ask her what she thinks or put her photo up on their website, the TV crews will never show her touching the horse. A shame, this furor would not last a week if she were heard, the horses would be safe in their stables and in their lives, 300 people would sleep better at night, knowing their jobs and way of life are safe also.
Evita does not say much, she does not yet have a lot of words but she may be the most eloquent voice I have yet heard in New York.
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Evita is from the South Bronx, in New York City. Her father left when she was six months old; she lives with her grandmother and seven siblings and cousins. She has a severe learning disability and suffers from acute asthma. Her mother, who works three different jobs to help pay for her care – she cannot afford her own apartment – took Avita to Central Park Monday to ride on the carousel, and then, the major reason for the trip, to see the big horses.
This trip was Evita’s first time out of the Bronx, said her mother, she has never seen the ocean, a mountain, or rolling green hills, not even the big skyscrapers of Manhattan. She has never seen a cow or a donkey or a sheep or, until Monday, a horse. She had never seen any animals but dogs and cats and rats, her mother said. She had never even taken a subway this far.
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When a local TV station ran a story about the move to ban the horses from New York, Evita watched with her grandmother, mesmerized, and asked, begged, for the first time, to ride into Manhattan. “So beautiful,” she kept on saying. She wanted to touch one of the horses, she thought they were magical creatures, like the ones she had seen photos of in the library, the ones she had seen in the movies. She was as drawn to them, said her mother, as anything she had ever seen. I watched the carriage driver as he saw Evita rushing up ahead of her mother, who was trying to call her back. But Evita was well ahead of her, she approached the big brown horse – he weighed more than 1,500 lbs – and grabbed his snout on either side with both of her hands.
I watched to see if the driver would be afraid that the horse might spook or bite the girl, but he just smiled, he never moved. You can tell so much about the way an animal is being treated by the trust their owners show them, especially around children. He was watching, he was not worried. By simply swinging his great head, the horse could have sent the child flying, but he didn’t move. The New York Carriage Horses are touched constantly, almost everyone but the animal rights demonstrators wants to touch them and feel them. The drivers never seem to mind, they never seem nervous, they never try and stop people from putting their hands on them.
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They see what I see, this is a great and atavistic need in human beings to see animals and be around them. In our Western culture, we have abandoned the animal world, we are disconnected from them, our only idea is to rescue them and see them as piteous and to hide them away from people. We keep giant condos and trucks and buses and cards and giant malls in our lives, but we make no provision for the animals, our partners in our life on earth. Nobody is banning the giant condo towers – they line the park, or the endless stream of cars that clog the park’s roadways. But the horses, they say, no longer belong here.
In children, the need for animals is undiluted, it is ubiquitous, joyous. For their part, the horses seem to also drink up the attention and need it, as animals who live and work with people do. The horses hold their heads low, accept the grabs, pats, carrots, rubs, stroking. It seems to ground them as well as us.
The famed British analyst Dorothy Burlingham said animals are essential to the healthy development of children. When a child hugs a dog, or holds a cat, or touches a big animal like a horse, he is connected to the earth, to the natural world, to the timeless bond between people and animals that has existed since the beginning of time. This connection is richly documented on cave walls, in sketches, paintings, fables, books, songs, myths and movies. There is nothing more natural than for domesticated animals to be with people.
Every child loves animals, Burlingham says, every child needs them, “they give the child an inner voice, a sense of who they are, it is a touchstone of their growth and emotional development, a great gift to them. Animals offer children their first lessons in love and trust and connection, especially if they are struggling to find those things in their lives. Animals give lonely children companionship, in their imaginations as well as their lives, but as importantly, a sense that they can master life in the world. ”
I witnessed this in Evita’s face, right there on the sidewalk. I asked her if the long trip from the South Bronx was worth it, and she looked at her mother, and the two of them nodded. “Sure, sure,” Evita said, “you bet.” Evita was talking to the big horse, and in his own way, he was speaking to her.
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Evita looked over at the animal rights demonstrators, holding up photos of horses fallen on pavements, lying on streets, then back at the horse, then at me. I do not know precisely what she was taking in; she struck me as one of those children that doesn’t miss much.
She held the horse’s nose for a minute or so, then rubbed his chest and ran her hand along his flanks. She looked around furtively – her mother was talking to another mother on the sidewalk – and then, when she thought no one was looking, she kissed the big horse right below his shoulder. He turned and looked at her, and if I did not know it was impossible, I would swear to you that he smiled. That’s right, I felt him communicating to her, I am safe, I am a part of your world, I come from Mother Earth, you are part of mine, you can trust me and love me. And yes, big as I am, I will be your friend.
” Can I come back?,” Evita asked me suddenly, looking again at her mother. It is not up to me, I said, but I think you can come back anytime. “Anytime,” said the driver. Evita had had found her voice; right there on the sidewalk, and she could hear the voices of the horses, feel their magic, even if the demonstrators shouting their slogans and waving their placards just a few feet away could not.
I wondered at the sight of that child reaching out to grab the head of a horse that must have seemed an enormous giant to her, especially given that she had never seen one before. It would change her, I was sure of it, so was her delighted mother, beaming as the sight of her daughter and the carriage horse. “She will remember this all of her life,” she said. She was grateful, she said, that the drivers let the children come right up to the horses. She was certain there would be a fee, she told Evita it would almost surely be forbidden to touch the horses.
When I last saw Evita, she and her mother and two of her brothers were taking a carriage ride into the park, she was too small for me to see in the carriage trotting off towards the park entrance down the street. But there was no mistaking her grin as she was picked up and put in the carriage. Someone had bought her a ride.
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So this, then, is the point of the New York Carriage Horses, some of the meanings behind the controversy being watched all over the world now. Children are pure; they are not yet corrupted by labels and arguments, they have not yet decided to hate what is different from them, or those who might see the world differently. They seem to know what we have forgotten, that animals belong in our world. And the horses are talking to them, otherwise they could never muster the strength to come up and touch them.
I do not believe it is just or humane to take the horses away from Evita and the thousands of children whose eyes and imaginations light up at the sight of them and the countless others who love to see them and ride in their carriages.
I asked Evita’s mother about the move to banish the horses from New York, to send them to rescue farms and slaughterhouses, to take them away from the lives of people.
“What would that mean for Evita?” I asked.
She stopped and looked around to see what her daughter was doing, she was disheveled and distracted, I could see even this short trip was hard for her, she said she had to get back to work; she was on the night shift at a Dunkin’ Donuts.
“If they take the horses away,” she said, “Evita will never see them again.”
Sometimes, Zelda comes and lays down where she struggled to give birth to a lamb that was born dead. Maria came and sat with her last night, the two sat together for the longest time, and then Zelda got up and called out to the other lambs.
Our donkeys are such special creatures, they are so intelligent, intuitive and loving, I think they missed us more than the dogs or cats. When we got home, they all gathered around us, pressed against us. I kissed Simon on the nose, he leaned his forehead against me, Lulu put her head on Maria’s shoulder and the two of them just talked to one another in their own special way.
We are so grateful to have these donkeys in our lives, their affection is indirect yet so powerful.
