Stacy Horn

This is Johnny the Horse, an inmate of the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island who’d been there since he was a young boy and who believed himself a horse.

With an unraveled rope functioning as a tail, he’d paw the ground like a horse, and deliver packages around the Island while hitched to a crude wooden soapbox style cart pictured here.

Johnny never wanted to leave Blackwell’s, where he slept in a stable at night, and when he was told he was being transferred to Ward’s Island in 1895 he was distraught.

All the patients of the Lunatic Asylum were being transferred elsewhere, but Reverend William Glenney French, the episcopal missionary on Blackwell’s, wrote a letter on Johnny’s behalf, asking that he be allowed to remain, in the only home he’d ever known. When Johnny was told that he was going to be able to stay on Blackwell’s, “he neighed loudly and then started off on a dead run with his wagon around the Island, and did not stop until he had gone around twice.”

Sadly, he was later transferred to the Asylum for the Insane on Ward’s Island and after that to the Central Islip State Hospital. I could find no record of him after that, but presumably he died there.

By sheer coincidence, I was tweeting about Gramercy Park, a private park in NYC, and then Gothamist posted this very enlightening and well researched piece about Gramercy Park. Now the Mayor is talking about revisiting this whole idea of a gated park for the affluent residents of that neighborhood alone!

What I tweeted about was the fact that I’ve been passing by this beautiful park for decades now, and it’s almost always completely empty. It’s such a waste, and just seems wrong that it can be locked up and unused like this.

I wrote about Detective Wendell Stradford in my book The Restless Sleep, and even though he technically does not work in the Cold Case Case Squad anymore, (he’s part of the Police Commissioner’s detail) he still works on cold cases. A 25 year old case he worked on with Det. John Fogelman and Manhattan DA’s office Detective Siobhan Berry just led to an arrest.

I love this shot of Wendell at the book party for The Reetless Sleep, towering over literary agents Erin Hosier and Betsy Lerner, from my agency, the Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency.

The first shot was on the way to the parade, the rest are from the actual parade. I cried for the first few minutes I was there. It was just such a positive event, compared to the ongoing and relentless ugliness coming out of the White House. Thank you, paraders!

Spotted these on the sidewalk on the way to work yesterday. Today is the big Gay Pride Parade. I’m going to clean up my apartment and head out to take pictures!