Central Park Horse Carriage Ban May Be Tied to a Real Estate Grab

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. Well, with us today is John Samuelson, and he’s the president of the Transport Workers Union of America. And, well, 170,000 employees, but he cares about all of them. He cares about, in New York City, Central Park. He cares about the horses in Central Park. And, John Samuelson, give us an update.

0:25 What’s going on?

0:29 Speaker 2 Well, John, the update is that we’re awaiting the mayor of New York City to sign the bill. It’s my understanding that he’s committed to sign the bill next week. And when he signs that bill, well, we’re going to go to court. And we believe when we go to court, we will be well on our way to getting the

0:47 bill overturned on several different points. And when that happens, I think that the tables will turn a little bit. I don’t know that we’re going to win the fight. In the long term, but certainly in the short term, I think we’re going to turn the tables a little bit on this New York City Council that has done

1:02 something very heinous to working people.

1:06 Speaker 1 I understand it. Now, bottom line, I know a lot of accusations have been going back and forth, et cetera, et cetera. Tell us... What do you think? Why is this happening? Why? I mean, why? This is part of the ambiance of New York, part of the ambiance of Central Park. Having these horse carriages has been here, what,

1:34 over 100 years?

1:36 Speaker 2 Yeah, 168 years. I firmly believe, and I think any neutral onlooker believes, and all the intelligent people that are analyzing this believe, that it’s happening online. Solely because the stables in Hell’s Kitchen are worth a lot of money and real estate developers want to build them up. That is why it’s happening. And that’s why it’s been happening

1:59 from the very beginning. Steve Nislik, who founded NICLAS, so a real estate developer founded an animal rights organization. Imagine that. And that real estate developer in the... in the initial pamphlet for night class, just happened by sheer coincidence to mention the value of the stables and the underutilized value of the stables when he was allegedly talking about animal

2:24 rights and fair treatment for the horses. So this has always been and always will be about the development of the stables. And by the way, if it wasn’t about the development of the stables, there would be a push right now to switch the industry over to electric vehicles.

2:41 So they would switch the medallions from horse carriages to electric carriages. But the reason they don’t want to do that and the reason Julie Menon doesn’t want to do that is because the electric vehicles would still have to be stored in the stables. So it’s her goal and the goal of the developers to vacate the stables totally

2:59 so they could build them up. And again, if there were electric vehicles in the stables, they couldn’t vacate them.

3:05 Speaker 1 Well, John Samuelson, please keep us informed because the people of New York want to know and they want to know the truth. And thank you for telling us the truth. And we’ll catch up with you again real soon.

3:16 Speaker 2 John, thank you for having me. Thank you.