On a sweltering Saturday morning outside Jackson Square, Willy Picket rested his shoes on the front of his wooden carriage and looked at his 14-year-old white-haired mule, Baby Girl.
Picket was dressed for the weather, with breathable shorts, a straw hat, an Under Armour shirt and slip-on shoes he said were built to withstand mule urine. Baby Girl stood in front, wearing a tiny blue Mardi Gras krewe hat. It was late July, as New Orleans settled into the long stretch of high temperatures and humidity that arrives each year, and as a debate about tourist carriages simmered in other U.S. cities.
New York City is considering banning its iconic horse-drawn carriages, which have been in Central Park for 167 years. In June, an 18-year-old tourist there died after leaping from a runaway carriage whose driver had stepped off to take a picture. The death came not long after a carriage horse there died after eating a poisonous plant and broader questions arose about heat and animal work…