What Are We Willing to Tolerate on the UWS?

By Yvonne Vávra

So far, this hasn’t been a great year for the rule of law.

Red lines around democratic norms and legal protections are crossed so casually now, it’s hard to believe in right and wrong anymore. And the only reason we’re not losing our minds over one injustice is that the next one’s already here to distract us. We barely have time to collect our thoughts and ask: Do I have a limit? What, if anything, will move me to act?

Then something happened right here on the Upper West Side — something so clearly, viscerally wrong, yet somehow not illegal, that it cut through the numbness and got people to show up.

Two weeks ago, a ten-year-old chihuahua named Penny was viciously attacked by two large dogs at the corner of Columbus Avenue and West 85th Street. The dogs mauled Penny while their handlers mostly stood by; one even let go of the leash, according to the multiple eyewitnesses, some of whom recorded videos of the attack. Their images included that jaw-dropping scene of the dogs’ owners simply walking away, leaving behind a bleeding dog, who needed two hours of surgery, and a neighborhood full of angry, heartbroken residents.

Quickly, neighbors helped uncover the owner’s identity, and the police had his records as well. But they can’t act, because under New York City law, dogs are considered property, and property can’t commit or be the victim of a crime. Someone steals a $5 pack of gum? Crime. Someone’s dog kills your dog? No crime.

People were furious. A dog had been mauled, and no one could be held accountable! They packed a town hall meeting organized by City Councilmember Gale Brewer, who’s now pushing legislation that would make handlers of violent dogs more easily held accountable under the law. Two additional state-level bills would reclassify dogs from property to “sentient beings,” making it easier to press charges in cases like Penny’s. But that kind of change takes time — and pressure. Laws don’t change just because something’s wrong. Justice only happens when people show up to claim it. Many proposed laws die quietly in committee, so it’s on the public to rally behind Brewer and demand that the City Council and the Mayor act. If New Yorkers want justice — for Penny, or any one of us — we’ll have to keep showing up and keep the pressure on.

If you’re looking for proof that this actually works, just walk a few blocks north to Riverside Drive and West 89th Street, where one woman was so fed up with the way things were she took on the system — and won.

Today, that corner is a pocket of peace. The rattling drumroll of youth in motion —  skateboards clattering around the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument —is about as much as your ears will ever be asked to tolerate here. But in 1905, Julia Barnett Rice moved her family into the villa at 346 West 89th Street, and even with six kids, nothing had prepared her for the noise that came with it. Back then, the Hudson was choked with tugboats, blasting their horns all through day and night. “Each horn gave off a low, tubalike blast of warning or greeting or just because,” writes architecture critic and Upper West Sider Justin Davidson in his book Magnetic City. “Together they massed into a never-ending brass choir that lifted off the river and rumbled through the stone mansions on Riverside Drive.” Add to that the trains thundering and shrieking along the Hudson, and even a mother of six said: Okay, this is too much.

Julia set out to turn down the volume on the Upper West Side, founding the Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise. Bolstered by research on the detrimental health effects of noise pollution, she rallied lawmakers in Washington, local police officers, health department officials, and shipping regulators. Her dogged determination paid off: The city eventually passed regulations on tugboat tooting and other urban noise, and Congress enacted a law on the federal level to reduce ship noise.

But back to the future: The attack on Penny the chihuahua jolted people into action — not just because it was tragic, but because the injustice was undeniable. That kind of clarity has power. But these days, there’s no shortage of clear injustice. Some facts are just facts — not political, not controversial. Dogs are sentient beings. Tugboats shouldn’t blare their horns all night. And, to name just one more, no one should be dragged from their life and sent to prison without due process.

The question is: what are we willing to tolerate? Granted, it often feels like nothing can be done. But as frustrating as it was to hear at Penny’s town hall meeting that no immediate consequences would follow the attack, it still felt good to be together — to see others care.

There’s an Upper West Sider who shows up all by himself almost every day at the corner of West 97th Street and Central Park West, holding a small sign protesting injustice. Some might ask: what’s the point of that? Sometimes, the point is not staying silent. It’s channeling anger into motion, being an inspiration to someone else, making it harder for others to look away. It’s doing something, anything, to avoid ending up in the worst place of all: without hope, knowing you gave up.

Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.

Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.