DAY ONE OF HURRICANE IRENE – horses still out!

I hope everyone is safe. On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, we survived it pretty well. The rain has stopped – maybe temporarily. The trees i see out my window are still standing. My windows did not get blown in. We are all safe.

Yesterday, NYC was getting seriously into emergency mode. Stores were busy as people bought groceries to last through the next month. The NYC transit system began to shut down at 12 noon. People in low lying areas had been asked to evacuate as early as Thursday and Friday. President Obama declared a state of emergency for New York State about 5 p.m. on Friday in anticipation of Hurricane Irene, a Category 2 storm, making landfall on the East Coast. This was the President of the US — not the Mayor or Governor – but the President. Serious stuff.

On Friday, I e-mailed my contacts at the Administration and the ASPCA asking them to shut down the carriage horse trade beginning on Saturday. True to form, they ignored me. They always do. On Saturday, we learned that the horse carriages were out working – the drivers plying their trade. It rained intermittently and heavily on Saturday. The City was in crisis mode – but the entitled carriage horse trade were allowed to work.

Donny Moss is the director and producer of the award winning documentary about the NYC carriage trade Blinders: the Truth Behind the Tradition.. Donny decided to walk from his apartment almost three miles away to document this travesty.

http://www.blindersthemovie.com