City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York.

The blizzard finally ended before midnight last night.

The sun returned to us today.  By tomorrow morning, it might be hard to remember the blizzard, even though it was the second biggest snowfall to hit New York since record keeping began.

I put on my new boots and headed out for a walk just before midday.

Lots of energetic shoveling and powerful snowplowing had been underway and the results were apparent.

Curbside drifts were solidly packed.

I was happy to see that a mid-block crossing channel had been created allowing folks living in my building to easily cross the street to the north side of the street.  And vice versa.  Please note the lack of any slushy pools in these channels.

Just down the block no such channels appeared.  Those drifts were about four feet tall.  

Down at the corner with Broadway, a local television news crew was recording some sort of report.  Their sound truck was parked just where some regular street vendors usually set up their table of useful items like hats, scarves, toy taxicabs, and so forth.  I sensed some sort of pending serious discussion between the news crew and the vendors and kept on walking.

Perhaps you can detect the ongoing exterior maintenance work on the beautiful building across Broadway has required a sort of giant hairnet to be applied to the building's facade.

I continued on my way down Broadway past Lincoln Center, where several crews were catching up on clearing snow from walkways, driveways and the plaza before ice formed. 

The little triangular park across from Lincoln Center is a pleasant place to sit in warmer weather.

My destination was my workplace, even though I was not scheduled to work today.

I thought it would be fun to show you all a view from that giant front window of the mall, now that the holiday colored lights had been removed and the snow had fallen on Columbus Center.

My work colleagues and I all had today off, so that we could have a postponed holiday celebration.  We went for a quick lunch and then attended a Broadway musical matinee.  It's very unusual for us to have such an opportunity to enjoy each others' company off duty, and we did have a fine afternoon.

I admit that I did not much like the show we saw, but I won't reveal its identity.

After the show, I took the subway home from Times Square, and took a few more post-blizzard photographs of my neighborhood to give you all an idea of just how quickly our city can move on after even a big storm. 

This view down Broadway shows an immense pile up of plowed snow right at a bus stop.  Buses returned to service today, and my photograph does not show a tiny narrow channel that had been cut through that snow mound to allow potential bus passengers to actually reach the steps to a bus.  But...those passengers will have to wade through some slush.

Yesterday, bicycle delivery persons were ordered to stay off the streets after mid-afternoon, so that the streets could be effectively plowed over and over as the evening arrived.  

By today, delivery service had resumed.  Those folks pedaling bikes to deliver take-out food have great courage.  I think that their jobs are very dangerous even in perfect weather.

Well, this will conclude my trio of reports regarding our historic snow storm.  It has been unusual for me to blog so frequently.  Hoping you all have enjoyed my attempt to give you a sense of how we handle this sort of natural occurrence.  I've certainly enjoyed reading your comments and thank you for your visits.