NYC General Discussion - You Hear That Giant Sucking Sound?

[Badger]

Why not allow the horse-drawn carriages and simply amp up regulation enforcement of their working and living conditions? Carriage owners would prefer to have to impliment reforms than lose thier business entirely, and all but the PETA "pet-dom is slavery" extremists should be satidified with the horses not being uncared and too overworked.

[Badger]

Not everyone who wants carriage horses banned is a member of PETA so I think we can give that talking point a rest for a while guys.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying the alternative of effectively enforcing laws requiring the horses be well-cared for should satisfy all but that extreme element.

[Badger]

NYT with an editorial with a bad pun of a pun: Shirtless Bodies in Pointless Times Square War

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Right to call ripping out the pedestrian plazas an overreaction, wrong to brush off concerns about tawdry and crude panhandlers accosting and even groping passers by (the example given in the Daily News could certainly count as sexual harassment). Someone there observed that it might sound prudish and provincial to find topless women offensive, but as a New Yorker it is embarrassing to see parents be confronted by them out of the blue; they should not have this kind of thing thrust at them without prior warning.

For many people visiting this is their first experience with the city. An outsider might wonder why such a (presumably) great city would allow itself to be overrun by such tasteless, talentless hacks for whom crude self-exhibition is the only way they could make money. Even the musicians in the subway have to audition for their gigs. These talent-less freeloaders add nothing good to Times Square.

We owe the city, its residents, and our visitors so much better than this.

The issues of panhandlers objectionally accosting and grabbing passersby is wholly separate and distimct from their being topless. Women going topless is legal and cracking down on this legal behavior will only get the city in hot water.