Life in a frozen metropolis...

A day spent walking in Central Park, enjoying the balmy New York winter...

The fact that there is any sort of tourist industry at all in New York City is a testament to the number of cultural offerings and fine dining establishments for which the city has to boast, for nobody in their right mind visits for the weather. I have concluded that there are roughly 4 weeks of pleasant weather during the entire year in the city, two in the spring and two in the fall. During the summer, the heat and humidity are reminiscent of a moldy locker room shower stall in a junior high school located on the outskirts of hell, and in the winter the howling wind and black snow that refuses to fully melt is a happy reminder that frost bite isn't just something you were told about in stories, but it is an experience available to all. This being said, my first winter in the city, although rather uncomfortable, has been filled with many crystalline wonders which are inexplicable to me considering how much I dislike cold in general. Somehow, with chattering teeth and cheeks burned raw by the icy winds, I have managed to find the frozen world of the city quite beautiful...

Although my childhood was spent in the snowy mountains of Colorado where my father taught specialized courses in winter survival with the sun shining on high alpine peaks and the birds singing songs in the fairy-tale-esque environment of the Rocky Mountain winters, I feel completely ill-equipped for the season "back east." When we would have blizzards back home, it just meant we'd turn on the 4 wheel drive in our Subarus, get out our polar fleece lined Columbia jackets and lace up our Sorels while continuing on with our lives. Sure, a foot or two of snow on the ground would slow us down a bit, but it wouldn't stop us. In my entire K-12 education, despite numerous heavy snow storms, we had one "snow day" ever, and that was in 1990 when there were two feet of snow that fell over night, and the school buses couldn't be freed from their ice-prison before the morning.

On the day after Christmas this year, we had a snow storm in the city that shut everything down, causing chaos and pandemonium for all five boroughs. I happened to be working my temporary job in holiday retail that night as the blizzard was in full force. Even snow blowing in horizontally from all cardinal directions wouldn't stop bargain shoppers on Fifth Avenue. As taxis slid past stop lights and hot dog vendors drug their carts out of the streets into unknown shelters (where do they go at night?), the lure of 50% off on all outerwear accessories kept salivating bargain hunters going through the thick of little Jack Frost's temper tantrum. By 9pm, the buses had stopped running, but the sales went on. By the time I got out of work at 11pm, the scene was akin to a cold war era film about nuclear holocaust. Taxis had stopped running completely, and bicycles were abandoned in the middle of the streets. Half the trains had been shut down, and so the few subway stations still in operation looked like bomb shelters with weary frozen souls huddled together hanging on to the hope that the train would eventually come and warm beds would be waiting at the end of so many long journeys home. I saw one woman with a rosary clasped in her hands, whispering prayers to herself while a herd of tiny children clung to her soggy legs.

The train finally came, and slowly it slid into each stop on the icy tracks until I finally made it back up to the Columbia University station. When I made it out of the frozen little hole in the ground, back up to the street level, I had to walk in the tracks being made by a woman 3 feet ahead of me. We made an unspoken agreement with our eyes that whosoever should be blown down by the wind into the snow would be the responsibility of the other. It just so happened that she turned two blocks before my street, and I was blown on my backside down into a snow bank exactly one block after we parted ways...

It took nearly a week for all the streets to be plowed and for the city to begin operating on time again. I found it humbling that in one of the largest metropolitan cities in the world, filled with vast resources and cutting edge technologies, life could still be brought to a lurching halt by a phenomenon as basic as the snow. It seems that only in a "state of emergency" will the city slow itself down and take a bit of a needed rest. It was a beautiful thing to wake up in the morning without the sound of a single car horn or ambulance rushing down the streets. Everything was still and calm, and for the first time since moving to the city, there was a soft quietness in the air. Once the snow had stopped, the sun came out and children were sledding in the park outside of my front window. It felt like some sort of Frank Kapra type moment that should have been experienced in black and white. By the following day, life was delayed, but slowly went back to the normal loud and intense hustle I have grown accustomed to. I was glad that after a season of working 75 hours per week between two jobs, New York had given me a much needed snow day to sit back and catch my breath.