Central Park Leaders Ask N.Y.C. Officials to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages

New York|Central Park Group Wants Ban on Horse-Drawn Carriages

The nonprofit group that manages Central Park on Tuesday formally asked New York City officials to ban horse-drawn carriages from the park, for the first time taking a public stance on an issue that has been politically contentious for years.

The group, the Central Park Conservancy, said it was throwing its support behind Ryder’s Law, a pending City Council bill that would prohibit horse carriages from operating in the city, and urged Mayor Eric Adams and Adrienne Adams, the Council speaker, to support such a ban.

Horse carriages have been a fixture of the Central Park landscape since the 19th century, and the conservancy’s opposition to their continued operation in the park could be a significant blow to the industry.

“We do not take this position lightly,” Betsy Smith, the conservancy’s president, wrote in a letter to the mayor and Council speaker, “but with visitation to the park growing to record levels, we feel strongly that banning horse carriages has become a matter of public health and safety for park visitors.”

Last week, a 15-year-old mare named Lady that had worked in New York City for less than two months collapsed and died at a Manhattan intersection. City health officials are investigating what caused the death.

Animal rights activists have condemned the carriage trade as abusive, but Ms. Smith said in her letter that the conservancy’s decision was unrelated to such criticisms.

“We are not experts on animal welfare and will leave those arguments to others,” she wrote, “but we are experts on the park.”

Instead, Ms. Smith said, the conservancy wants to protect the public and to prevent the physical damage that horse-drawn carriages do to the park’s roadways.

This is a developing story that will be updated.