The horse blanket hung over the horse in winter and the horse stood at the curb and the blanket kept the horse warm while the driver went inside. Wool. Heavy. Plaid or solid. The horse blanket was the overcoat of the working animal. The horse blanket was the last thing the driver put on and the first thing he took off.

Thirty thousand horses worked in Manhattan at the turn of the century. Thirty thousand blankets. The blanket maker on Orchard Street sold them for two dollars and the blanket lasted the life of the horse and the life of the horse was about eight years. Two dollars for eight years of warmth. The accountant calls that depreciation. The horse called it Tuesday.

The horse blanket doubled as furniture. The delivery man folded it and sat on it at lunch. The kids on the block borrowed it for a fort. The dog slept on it in the stable. The horse blanket had more jobs than the horse. The horse pulled the wagon. The blanket pulled everything else.

After the horse died the blanket went to the house. My grandfather had a horse blanket on the couch in his apartment on Hester Street until 1960. He said the blanket was warmer than anything Macy's sold. He said the blanket had been warmed by a horse for eight years and the warmth never left. I sat on that blanket as a kid. He was right. The warmth was still in there.

The horses are gone from Manhattan. The blankets are gone. The carriage horses in Central Park have blankets but those blankets are costumes. Tourist blankets. The working blanket covered a horse that pulled a wagon up Broadway at four in the morning in January. That blanket earned its warmth. The tourist blanket is decorative. Decoration is not the same as warmth.

See also: Horse Trough, Hitching Post