New York Times
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
Published: May 13, 2005
Two one-ton horses broke loose near the Meatpacking district this morning, galloping down sidewalks among startled morning commuters, after the stagecoach they were pulling tipped over and the drivers were flung from their seats.
The horses were caught unharmed several blocks away, but one coach driver, Kazim Palaz, was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital complaining of shoulder pain.
The red stagecoach, promoting a new Shania Twain fragrance by Stetson’s, was heading east on 14th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues about 9:30 a.m. when it was struck from the rear by a white van, Mr. Palaz told the police.
The stagecoach tipped over, letting the horses slip free of their harness and bolt east, past a Starbucks, Gristedes and Papaya King. The van sped off, too.
The horses, named Princess and Hero, charged down sidewalks as one of the drivers gave chase, yelling at people to get out of the way. Shocked pedestrians darted into the street and took refuge in building entryways.
“I heard someone screaming, ‘Look out! Watch out!’ ” said Carla Morreale, a software company employee, who had just come out of the Subway stop when she saw the horses bearing down on her. She ducked into a building entryway with two other women. “You don’t expect horses to be charging towards you on your way to work on the sidewalk in Manhattan,” she said.
Chester Burroughs, 62, was sitting at his desk just inside the lobby of the Teamsters building on 14th street when he saw the horses run by. “I had to get up and look again,” he said. “It was strange to see two horses loose on 14th Street.”
Hero was corralled at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue by police officers who happened to be in Union Square for an anti-terrorism drill. They tethered him to a lamppost, surrounded by yellow police tape.
But Princess continued on, galloping east to Fifth Avenue, where she made a right turn, and then another right turn at 13th Street.
“It was flying with the flow of traffic,” said Bob Di Giorgio, a crane operator, who was working behind a barrier at a construction site when he first spotted Princess.
But then the light turned red. As the cars came to a stop, Princess skidded to a halt herself, right behind a sedan, Mr. Di Giorgio said.
He saw his opportunity. “I leaned over the barrier, grabbed the reins and restrained the horse,” he said, describing a move that would have been far more practiced a century ago, when horses were still commonplace on city streets.
A motorist leaped out to help. “It was a joint effort,” Mr. Di Giorgio said of the effort to restrain and calm the animal. They tied Princess to a tree and waited for help.
“Luckily, the light turned red,” Mr. Di Giorgio said, reflecting.
While horses were still familiar fixtures of urban American life early in the 20th century, stagecoaches, used mostly for long-distance travel, were virtually phased out of New York City by the 1830’s, superseded by trains, according to Kathleen Hulser, the public historian of the New York Historical Society. However, they continued to be used in western states, where lower demand for transportation meant railways were not an economic option.
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