Luke
West Side Cowboy
30" x 40" Oil on textured canvas
The West Side Cowboys were employed by New York City to ride on horseback in front of street-level freight trains to clear pedestrians off the tracks of 10th Ave.,  also known as “Death Avenue.”  The locals called them "dummy boys" as they preceded the "steam dummies" so as not to spook the local horses and to stop the carnages. The Cowboys were phased out after the High Line was built, raising train traffic to the third story of industrial buildings.