NYC NOW - The Last Ride? New York City Moves Closer to Ending Horse Carriages

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

New York City is moving closer to ending its horse carriage industry. With the City Council preparing to vote on a bill that would ban carriage rides starting in June 2028, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Liam Quigley visits a Hell’s Kitchen stable to hear from workers worried about losing their jobs and owners concerned about their investments.Photo: Liam Quigley /WNYC/GothamistGot any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail]. These are the NYC neighborhoods that will get free 2-K next fall Eric Adams' NYC buildings boss Eric Ulrich heads to trial, 3 years after arrest More on the proposed horse carriage banNYC Council, Mayor Mamdani agree to end Central Park's carriage horse industryTeen's death in Central Park horse carriage fall has lawmakers pushing to ban industryCentral Park carriage horse died after eating toxic shrub, examination finds Family says stray voltage may have contributed to fatal Central Park carriage crash. More on safety concerns on Central Park's loopCentral Park's car-free loop is busier than ever. Crashes keep piling up Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Junae Pierre. Everything in the park, besides the carriages, is either breaking the laws or isn't even supposed to be there. So on the carriage drives, we're the slow-moving traffic that's always been there. For years, horse carriage rides through Central Park were a traditional tourist attraction. But city leaders say the industry will come to an end by the summer of 2028. On today's show, we discuss a bill that aims to ban horse carriage rides in New York City

and we'll meet drivers to discuss what's at risk for them if the city council votes yes on the measure this week. But before we get into that, here's a few headlines we're following. Every school district in the Bronx and on Staten Island will offer free preschool seats for two-year-olds next year. The city is adding 10,000 additional two-k slots for families across 17 new school districts. That includes neighborhoods like Bushwick, Morningside Heights, and Elmhurst, among others. City officials say they'll offer more information to parents in the coming weeks. The trial of former New York City Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich is currently underway. He was arrested in 2023.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says, Ulrich did favors for friends and associates in exchange for cash, Mets tickets and other bribes worth over $150,000. Ulrich was the first member of former mayor Eric Adams' administration hit with corruption charges. An attorney for the man says he's innocent. We'll be following the trial for the next few weeks. If you want to read more on the indictment and the accusations against the former buildings commissioner, visit our news site gotamist.com.

Man, that was a fun ride. I'm talking about the high from the New York Knicks' championship win. I know we're still on it, right? Well, on Tuesday night, the Knicks will raise another champion. Banner at Madison Square Garden. It'll be an exciting season opener against LeBron James and his new team, the Philadelphia 76ers.

No big challenge. We got this. Let's go Nix. All right, let's get on with the show. Mayor Zora Mamdani says the horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City. Horse carriages are a famous site in Central Park, but they've also been at the center of a long-running fight over animal welfare,

public safety, and people's livelihoods. Animal rights groups have pushed for years to get the carriages out of the park, saying the horses are mistreated. The driver's union has fought to keep the industry operating. Now, the city council is scheduled to vote this Thursday on a bill that would end the industry by June 2028. Supporters call it a matter of safety and animal welfare. Drivers are concerned they could lose their jobs and owners,

what they've invested. WNYC and Gothamist reporter Liam Quigley has been covering this fight, and he joins me now. Liam, welcome to the show. Hey. So Liam, as I mentioned, this fight has been going on for years now, but why does it look like the band might finally happen this time? It goes on forever and ever, it seems like. It's a perennial, like, New York City fight. But, yeah, there's big pressure that's been building over this.

you know, under Mayor's Bill de Blasio, Eric Adams, they both tried to end this industry. Horses don't belong in the middle of Manhattan streets. So what I've said is we can find another way to support the tourist industry. They're taking a step to ban the horse carriage industry in the city of New York. They weren't able to make it happen. And then you do get this city council legislation named for Ryder, a horse that collapsed on a Midtown Street in 2020. the horse had to be euthanized a couple months later, and that builds up to last year,

the Central Park Conservancy for the first time calling for a ban of the horse carriage industry. But still, that bill did not get the support it needed in the city council at the time. Yeah, and then June 2026 happened, and we have a couple incidents just within a couple weeks' time. First, Liam, let's talk about the horse. horse that collapsed?

Yeah, a carriage horse named Denise collapsed and died while pulling passengers around the Central Park loop. Then the Transport Workers Union got to necropsy after that, and they found out that the horse had consumed Japanese U, which is toxic to the animals and is found pretty commonly in Central Park. So the union points their fingers at the conservancy for allowing that plant to be in the park where horses could munch on it. The Conservancy shoots back and says, look, the park is busier.

It's more crowded than it's ever been. And really, for the safety of visitors, other animals, and like the horses themselves, they say we're down to ban these carriage horses from the park. And then you have night class, which is one of like the main animal rights group that has been opposed to the horse carriage industry for a really long time. They say that the Transport Workers Union owned. statement showed that they they neglected to care for the horse by letting it consume the Japanese you. So there's a lot of fingers pointing over like who's responsible for this all going down.

And obviously like I mentioned, the pressure was already there. But now a week later, we all seem to learn a name, Romance Mahajan. Tell us about this teenager. Right. Yeah. This all builds up until June when Romance Mahajan 18 years old. he's visiting from India with his family. The horse pulling their carriage breaks away from its driver. Exactly why that happened was in dispute, but he's thrown from the carriage and dies.

The council held an all-day hearing on the bill in July after this teen's death, and the bill gets renamed for Romance Mahajan. Counsel Speaker Julie Menin recently told WNYC's morning edition that his death was the turning point. Certainly when I became speaker, I think a turning point was when Ramonch was sadly and tragically killed. And when I calendared this for a hearing in July and we heard from Ramonch's family, it was such compelling and moving testimony. And now Menon has scheduled that vote.

That is for this Thursday. And she says she has the votes to make this happen. Well, look, this has been a very long fight. And it stymied many, many. city council speakers and city councils over the years and many mayoral administrations. But we are thrilled to announce that I've calendared this for a vote. So Liam, I know that you recently went to one of the city's carriage stables. I'm really mad that I wasn't able to go with you this time on this field trip. But tell me about this place, Clinton Park Stables. What does this place look like?

Yeah, this is like kind of in, it feels like an ancient part of Manhattan where you've got these multiple floors with these steep ramps and there's straw everywhere and there's a barn cat that's going around and there's 90 horses that live there. And a lot of people that come work here every day, like this place rumbles to life and the horses go out the door and get hooked up to the carriages. It's a busy place with big animals and they have their stalls and they have their stalls and they have their automatic water feeders. Many of them have little windows that look out.

Over Hell's Kitchen. There's people who come and this is where they work out of every day. People say, oh my gosh, how do you know all the horses' names? I'm like, do you know the people that you work with? You know, the people at the office? That includes Christina Hansen, who's driven a carriage in the city for 14 years, shop steward for the driver's union, transport workers, local 100. She's probably like the most visible face of the industry.

And she's kind of walking me through telling me, you know, this is the largest the city's three carriage stables. So she's kind of like showing me the vet doing checkups, the stable workers tending to the horses. Yeah, that's really cool to see firsthand because, as we know, Liam, horse welfare is the thing that's at the center of this fight, right? Yeah, and the animal rights groups charge that, you know, these animals, animals are really poorly cared for. They say, look, these horses are dying in the streets. And the Transport Workers Union, they've always defended it. They say, these animals want to work.

Man and horse have worked together for, for, you know, hundreds of years. Since the beginning, really? Yeah, and they're like, you know, they say the horses are well cared for. They have regular checkups. and lie down. And I always bring people over here and almost always there's some laying down. So how are drivers like Christina

taking the news of this potential ban on the horse carriage industry in New York City? Not well. There's a sense of resentment, maybe betrayal towards the politicians. They're very stressed or distraught. People can't sleep.

It's bad for their health. I mean, people are worried. But they're angry too. Angry at who? Our enemies would like to say, like, that it's a dying business, but businesses die when they run out of customers. For Connor McHugh, it's the mayor. I mean, he's driven a carriage since 86 when he came here from Ireland.

He says his family voted for Mayor Mamdani. Well, devastation and maybe more betrayal. We listen to the mayor talking about how he defended and went on hunger strike in defense of the taxi medallion owners and then he gets up on his podium and announces that he's just shutting us all down, putting us out of business,

doesn't even talk to us. So I think this guy is as phony as a $3 bill. The mayor hasn't even talked to them. Yeah, that's what he told me. He says the mayor did not come to see the stables, at least not these on 52nd Street. And he doesn't think the mayor, mayor understands what this means for people like him.

I don't know if he realizes the people who are living through this, what he's putting them through. I'm not sure that he, obviously, I can't imagine that he's that big of a jackass, that he can't imagine what he's doing to people, just regular people who have mortgages and children and all of the things that people have to deal with every day and that he's just on his high horse, pardoned upon telling us all how he's going to wipe us off the map. So just lay it all out for us. What exactly do they stand to lose?

We should say that the council legislation, while there's many, many more details to be worked out, the kind of top line there is that the horses will not be slaughtered, and people will not lose their jobs. Exactly how that's going to play out, you know, we're going to see. But there doesn't mean that there's not fear that the stable workers, the drivers, what is going to happen to them? What will happen to those who have invested in this business?

Will they just lose their medallions? How is that going to work? You know, these carriages run on medallions the same way like taxis do. And Hanson told me there's 68 carriage. medallions in the city, 45 of them operating out of the stable in West 52nd. I mean, she told me what those medallions were supposed to be. So it was people's retirement planned. You know, it was people's college fund for their kids maybe someday.

You know, if you're a younger guy in the business that you work really hard, you invest a lot of money in the business, you plan for that. And there's people that have, you know, okay, I'm a business. owner now. I got something good going. I'm going to have kids. And now they've got young kids. And the medallion was supposed to be something that they were going to leave to their kids. Sounds like for some owners, this is the retirement plan. Yeah. And Hanson says the city once backed this business that in 2003, a group of 15 carriage owners bought the stable building and that the city's small business services helped them do it at the time. So the city obviously, you know,

23 years ago, thought that this was a, you know, the carriage industry was, you know, a worthy industry of investing in. I'm talking with WNYC and Gothamist reporter Liam Quigley about the city's plan to end horse carriages. After the break, what the city is promising these workers and whether the people at the stable believe it, stay close. This is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre, and I'm back with WNYC and Gotham.

as reporter Liam Cuygli. We've been hearing from carriage drivers who say the ban would cost drivers their jobs and owners their investments, including Christina Hansen, a driver in union shop steward, and Connor McHugh, who's driven a carriage since 1986. Okay, Liam, so what is the city offering people like Connor and Christina? Mom Dani is saying that, you know, his administration is going to make sure that workers and owners are protected. I mean, here's how Julie men.

and describe the plan to WNYC's Michael Hill. So under our bill, there would be job training as we work to transition these workers into other jobs. I'm also appointing a working group to work through some of these issues because under the bill, we have until June of 2028 to complete the transition, which involves everything from making sure the horses are going to a human place, making sure that we get the workers who, jobs and making sure that we're working with the medallion owners who own the medallions to operate the horse carriages. So really for all three groups, we wanted to make sure that we have a very strong transition plan in place. I'm announcing we're doing a working group to work through

these issues. What does Christina Hansen, the union shop steward that you spoke to, what does she think about this? She's not reassured. I mean, nobody has any clue what they're going to do. I mean, that's the thing. The thing that's in the bill, like the mayor will come up with a plan is not a plan at all. It's kicking the can down the road. It's banning first, ask questions later.

You know, Liam, we haven't talked much about the animals in the middle of this, right? What happens to the horses? Is there some type of sanctuary or something? Yeah, a sanctuary situation has been discussed, like a beautiful retirement. You know, none of these animals are to go to slaughter. That it would be, you know, a humane situation.

Owners cannot sell or transfer them for slaughter or to other carriage businesses. That's kind of what the bill says. And they'd have to notify the city at least 10 business days ahead of time before they make any moves. And the plan hasn't included a program to help owners, you know, follow through with all this. Hansen said a lot of drivers already pay to keep retired horses on farms in Pennsylvania or upstate. You know, one argument for the ban is public safety. What do drivers have to say about that? They say the horses are not the problem.

They say, look at the city. The city has gotten totally crazy with e-bikes and one-wheels and all these new devices that are like zooming past the carriage horses. they tell me they're actually the safest operators in the park. Everything in the park besides the carriages is either breaking the laws or isn't even supposed to be there. So on the carriage drives, we're the slow-moving traffic that's always been there. We stay to the right. Sometimes we pass each other slowly. We stay to the right.

And then there's people whizzing by. Interesting point. Does that hold up? Well, here's the thing. I mean, the loop is crowded. Three people have died in crashes since June. Romance Mahajan, who was thrown from the carriage, he was one of those three deaths. The other two were bicycle crashes, you know, two at the same spot near 84th Street.

Yeah. That includes last month, someone walking was hit and killed by a cyclist. Then on October 5th, a 71-year-old man, fell from his bike, trying to avoid a dog that was on the drive that should have been on a leash. None of those three were hit by a car, as you know, like cars have been kicked out of the park for a long time. So we haven't, you know, individually tabulated who's breaking the law the most in the park. But by Hansen's telling, you know, the carriage horses are actually pretty safe and law abiding. The point about the loop being so busy is a really good one.

What is the city planning to do about it? Yeah, last year the city's transportation department started overhauling the loop to kind of change the arrangement of how space is shared with the hope that it would make things safer for everybody, for pedestrians, for cyclists on regular bikes, for people using e-devices. And also, on his way out the door, Mayor Eric Adams set a 15-mile-an-hour speed limit on the park drives. That's not in effect right now because there is a local. cycling club that's suing to block that, saying it's kind of like that's not fair. Okay. Christina Hansen says she wants to see the speed limit lowered and that the carers choice drivers have asked the conservancy to bring back the park's original eight mile an hour

speed limit and they were told no. But it's there for tourists, right? I'm just wondering, like, in your reporting, were you able to talk with any tourists? Like, how do they feel about this ban? Yeah, the ones I talked to were split. Like, I went to the carriage line. I'm looking around the park. I saw 15 or 20 carriages waiting for customers, and the negotiation is happening.

And then I talked to Nicole Babiesz, who was visiting New York for the first time. She grew up riding horses outside Chicago. I told her about the band. Oh, my God, fabulous. I have watched every single horse go by and watched their hooves. And I'm very much, like, attention to detail. and some of them you could just tell they're not taking care of well, and it just breaks my heart, so I'm glad to hear.

She hadn't even heard about this ban, and it seems like she's all for it. Did anyone feel differently? Ricky Sells, I come across him also on the loop near the carriage horses. He's visiting from Austin. I mean, you shouldn't ban them, but you should put them in better locations where they're taking care of properly. That's all I think of, but other than that,

I think the horses is like a staple of New York. So it's like, why not? why not let him be here? So the council votes on Thursday and speaker Julie Minnan says she has the votes. If she's right, Liam, what happens next? This goes to Mayor Mamdani, who has said he supports, you know, transitioning, phasing out this industry.

If this all goes through, carriage licenses would expire on May 31st, 2028. What's still unresolved? Where do the horses go? are they going to be compensated for what they've invested? How is that going to happen? And then for drivers like Robert Boyle, it didn't mean the end of a job. He says he's done for more than 40 years.

He says he's raised four children doing this work. And I met him and his horse. What's the horse's name here? This is Sam. This is all political. You know, you got a few people making a lot of noise. I understand you have animal activists. I do see their point like, oh, horses shouldn't have to work for a living.

But people shouldn't have to work for a living either. But this is a fact of life. A horse is a man have worked together for hundreds of years. And my horse enjoys his job. I enjoy my job. My customers enjoyed the rides through the park. So it was just a part of history, an iconic business. What will you do if this comes to pass what they're saying?

Oh, maybe they'll put me out to Pastor also. That's WNYC and Gothamist reporter Liam Quigley. You can read his reporting on our news site, got the miss.com. Thanks, Liam. Thank you, Jeanette. And thank you for listening to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. See you next time.