The famous “Dancing in the Dark” number from “The Bandwagon” (one of Fred’s best) ends with Fred Astaire and the ethereal Cyd Charrise seamlessly collapsing in to a horse-drawn Central Park carriage. Can’t have that! New York’s communist mayor Zohran Mamdani (“There’s your party! There’s your party!”) has accomplished what New York City’s previous communist mayor Bill DeBlasio couldn’t. The New York City Council voted on last week to ban horse-drawn carriage rides from Central Park in two years.
Why? Because they could. Because a progressive constituency, albeit a wacko one, had been trying to put the Central Park carriage ride drivers out of business for decades: it’s cruelty to animals, see. It’s so much better to have those horses end up as dog food and their owners on Welfare. Anyway, it’s the principle of the thing.
Let’s look at the ethics elements in play:
Doesn’t the city feel any obligation to buy the medallions back from the carriage operators? Isn’t that a taking?
But hey, it’s all with the best of intentions…or is it. One deconstructed cultural tradition after another.
When will we learn they are coming for all of American culture?