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Sunday, 21 October 2012 - 9/11 Memorial

 
We (Kristina, her bro, and I) headed into Brooklyn this morning to have lunch here - Grimaldi's Pizzeria. It's a popular chain in NYC with this one here under the Brooklyn Bridge being the most popular for whatever reason. However, we arrived to find a massive queue out the door so we didn't bother hehe.
 
Right next door is Juliana's Pizza. In hindsight it was probably a dumb idea to open up a pizza shop right next to the most popular pizza shop in the city.
 
 
So we started wandering about Brooklyn, and getting all the cliché photos for Zach.

 
 
Rather than overhyped pizza, lunch came from a random food market we found before we started heading over the bridge and into Manhattan.

 
 
This is the 9/11 Memorial - the principal memorial and museum (still under construction) commemorating the September 11 attacks of 2001 (almost 3,000 killed) and the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 (six killed and over a thousand injured).
 
The eight-acre memorial site opened last year on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, and is located at the World Trade Center site on the former location of the Twin Towers. It consists of two one-acre pools set in the footprints of the original Twin Towers. Thirty-foot manmade waterfalls (the largest in North America) cascade into the pools and are supposed to drown out the sounds of the city, making the site a contemplative sanctuary. The names of the victims of both attacks are inscribed in bronze parapets around the pools. Very cool, but very sombre.

 
 
Overlooking it all is the unfinished One World Trade Center. The full redevelopment of the WTC complex is still a couple years away from completion.
 
This is the so-called Survivor Tree, recovered from the rubble a month after the attacks. It was just eight feet tall, badly burned, and had only one living branch. Prior to the attacks, it had lived at the WTC site for several decades. It was nursed back to health in a New York City park and nine years later it was replanted here again.
 
There wasn't much in there :)

Wednesday, 24 October 2012 - Ice!

 
This is becoming a common sight - NBC setting something up in the middle of the Rockefeller Center. God knows what this set was for. Recently I saw a scene from 30 Rock being filmed here (I didn't spot Alec Baldwin though).

 
 
Ever seen a photo of New York similar to this with the bloody big Christmas tree?
 
This is The Ice Skating Rink at Rockefeller Center which has just opened for the season until April (the rest of the year this area serves as an outdoor restaurant). This has been an annual thing since 1936 after originally being a temporary fixture in an effort to attract attention to the plaza. Good stuff!
 
Hmm, I remember those days. I'm awesome now - I just can't stop without banging into the wall (and/or other people).

Friday, 26 October 2012 - The end isn't nigh, but the weather is
This news article confirms something I researched a while ago: the world is not going to end on December 21st this year hehe. In the same way we move from one year to the next (or one cycle to the next if you will), so too does the Mayan calendar, and December 21st is simply the start of a new cycle specific to their calendar. Be that as it may, there's still plenty of excitement on the way. Hurricane Sandy may have a bit of a pansy name, but she's an angry bitch. She's torn through Jamaica (not cool mun!), Haiti and Cuba, and is bearing down on New York City. Current forecasts put it as reaching us late Sunday night or early Monday morning, and wreaking havoc for a good couple of days. Bloody hell I'm excited!

Saturday, 27 October 2012 - Halloween!

 
 
 
Lance Armstrong.
 
A blessing in disguise.
 
An idiot.
 
Not an idiot ;)

 
 
This is my first American Halloween, and as they do with everything else they take it to the extreme :) Halloween Day itself isn't until Wednesday but everyone was out in their 'finest' tonight. Looking awesome, we headed to the Subway bound for somewhere in Manhattan.

 
 
Not everyone got into the Halloween spirit but those in costume far out-numbered those who weren't, and some folk had really gone to town with it.
 
So looking around the bar we had Hulk Hogan...
 
King Neptune...

 
 
Not sure what she is or what's in the bag but we also had Angry Birds (looking more like depressed birds)...
 
Sponge Bob Square Pants, and a myriad of other randomness.
 
Good times!

Sunday, 28 October 2012 - The calm before the Sandy

 
With Hurricane Sandy still miles offshore in the Atlantic and heading in the wrong direction (pending a shift once it meets up with two winter storm systems nearby), people were preparing for the worst. I'd never seen my little supermarket so busy - sometimes when I go there I'm the only one in the place. They still seemed have plenty of everything this morning except for bread, and bananas hehe.

 
 
By this afternoon the wind had picked up a bit but was nothing out of the ordinary. Public transport is shutting down tonight and mandatory evacuations are in place for low-lying areas due to the likelihood of flooding. I went for a ride around Manhattan to see what was going on. Looks normal.
 
Gas stations were packed but that's nothing unusual either. Sandy is predicted to be worse than Hurricane Irene which battered New York last year, and a rare event not seen in almost a century - specifically how it's going to behave once it meets the other two storm systems.
 
Battery Park on the southern tip of the island of Manhattan was closed off and folk were slowly leaving the residential evacuation zone. About 375,000 people will be impacted by the evacuations.

 
 
The waters were calm and the ferries were still running, but by this time tomorrow this area is expected to be underwater with the high tides being far higher than usual.
 
Utility vans lined up and ready to fix shit. We're expecting to have power outages lasting for days, and possibly water outages as well. As long as the gas doesn't go out I'll still be able to cook up a feed but if that goes too then it'll be fruit, muesli bars, bread, umm cheese, and whatever else I've got kicking about. Cold soup is a last resort.

 
Ambulances lined up outside every hospital...
 
...and the fuzz lined up en masse ready to kick ass. Thousands of flights into New York have been cancelled including Kristina's flight back from Nashville tomorrow morning, where she was this weekend for a bachelorette party. She managed to swap that flight for a 5pm flight tonight, only to find out shortly thereafter that it too had been cancelled hahaha! So she's heading home to San Antonio for a few days until flights resume later in the week.

Monday, 29 October 2012 - Hurricane Sandy

 
 
She's a record-breaker. Some 20 million people affected spanning thousands of kilometres and more than a dozen states along America's east coast, millions without power, mass evacuations, thousands of flights cancelled, no public transport, major flooding, severe winds, and my ceiling is leaking hehe. This was the scene this morning before Hurricane Sandy made landfall. It was pretty blustery with a lot of squally rain but you could barely describe it as being any worse than just a shitty autumn day.

 
 
The roads were busy, people were out and about making last-minute preparations, and apart from a few busted tree branches it was pretty much business as usual.

 
 
Skip forward several hours and we really started to feel the storm's power, the effects of which haven't been witnessed since early last century due to it merging with two other winter storm systems in the area. That combined with a full moon meaning the tides are higher than normal anyway, and it's a recipe for a lot of fun. I've spent the day working from home in front of the news, just waiting for the lights to go out but so far they haven't. The CNN dude there has been standing at the same intersection in Atlantic City, New Jersey all day, getting absolutely pummelled hehe. At about 6pm my ceiling started to leak hahaha! Considering we have two floors of apartments above us as opposed to open air I've got no idea where that water is coming from; it's apparently done this once before during a major rain storm a few years ago. Sandy finally made landfall about 7pm over New Jersey a couple hundred kilometres south of New York, but the size of the storm system is such that it could've made landfall 500kms away or more and we'd still be getting battered. New York City's location makes it particularly susceptible to wild weather. At the moment we've got wind gusts of up to 85mph (130km/h) and although it's starting to weaken slightly as it moves across land, it's expected to linger for as long as 24-36 hours. More info, facts and figures here.

 
Because I had to work today I wasn't able to get out for myself to check out the goings on (much to my Mother's relief no doubt ;) And there was plenty to see too. The streets are littered with debris and several trees are down. In Chelsea (neighbourhood in Manhattan's lower west side) the entire facade of an apartment building collapsed onto the sidewalk below.
 
This is One57 in Midtown Manhattan, just five blocks north of my office. Upon its completion next year it will stand at 306 metres tall making it one of the tallest buildings in the city. That thing hanging from the side of it is (was) a crane hehe. The wind blew it over backwards early this afternoon and sent debris plummeting to the street below. There have been several problems with this particular crane in recent months including hydraulic fluid leaks and defects in the wire rope that holds up the crane's boom. Not entirely surprising then it now looks like a flaccid penis.
 
 
Carnage aside, there's major flooding all along the coast too as a huge storm surge moves in. New York City's location makes it particularly susceptible to this too, particularly Manhattan since it's a long, skinny island. As I write this, the flood waters in Lower Manhattan are at record levels. Battery Park is completely submerged and cars are apparently floating down the street. Subway tunnels are starting to flood now too as the boarded-up entrances aren't able to hold the water back. So that's the latest from my perspective - just waiting for that crane to come crashing down now.

Tuesday, 30 October 2012 - Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy

 
Manhattan, New York City - the city that never sleeps was all but completely shut down last night. Hurricane Sandy ripped through here with ferocity not witnessed before, breaking several records along the way. It was then renamed to Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy hehe - I have no idea what the difference is. Sandy's most impressive record is that it was the largest Atlantic hurricane in diameter on record. New York City got hammered but so too did several hundred miles of America's northeast coast and beyond. My roommates and I hunkered down in our third-floor apartment in Astoria, Queens, largely out of harm's way. When I first arrived here in June and started apartment hunting, hurricanes and wild weather didn't even cross my mind. It will in future though!
 
 
And here's why. This area is part of the so-called Zone A - the lowest lying area that was under mandatory evacuation due to the likelihood of flooding. And flood it did!
 
Elsewhere in Manhattan, Sandy dealt with the front facade of this apartment block, as she did numerous trees and that crane I mentioned last night that she left looking like a floppy dick in Midtown (which didn't fall down in the end).
 
 
In my borough of Queens, a devastating fire broke out on one of the beaches and has left some 80 homes in rubble. This was likely electrical in nature. Power lines came down all over the place, sparking and blowing up transformers and the like. One of New York's major power substations had an almighty explosion too that was captured on video and looked mighty impressive.
 
Despite all the chaos, some idiots were still out and about but for once I wasn't one of them. I was this close to getting on the bike and going exploring, but I wouldn't have seen anything that wasn't all over the news anyway, or I wouldn't have been allowed to get close. All the bridges into Manhattan were closed anyway. That combined with the fact trees were coming down all over the place (and several people had been killed by them already), it really wasn't worth it... this time.
 
 
Come daylight it was evident just how bad the night before had really been. This is the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel that connects Lower Manhattan to the borough of Brooklyn under the mouth of the East River. During the record storm surge when both the East River and the adjacent Hudson River engulfed Manhattan, the water started flowing into the tunnel and within an hour had completely filled it. I was actually right here just 48 hours ago on Sunday, watching cars go in and out of it as I waited to cross. But this is just one example. Subway tunnels are also floor-to-ceiling in water at the moment. In the Subway's 108-year history, that has never happened. Construction sites at Ground Zero were also flooded. I'm not sure how the 9/11 Memorial held up (good thing I saw it when I did).
 
Oh thank Christ the boat is ok! Other coastal areas were also inundated by the wet stuff, and right now this is a common sight right along the north of America's east coast. Pick your seaside suburb and chances are it resembles a war zone - a war zone with boats sitting in the middle of the street having just washed ashore and an incredible amount of sand that was also washed inland. Down in Atlantic City a huge chuck of the famous Boardwalk separated and started floating down the road hahaha! It's now perched against a number of parked cars that it wiped out along the way.
 
 
This is an underground PATH station (a train system connecting Manhattan with New Jersey across the Hudson River), showing the water pissing in from an elevator shaft and inevitably about to flood the train tunnels.
 
And this is LaGuardia airport hehe - bloody hell! I'm not sure about the state of New York's other two major airports (JFK and Newark) but there ain't nothing landing here for the time being! All up, two dozen states have been impacted by Sandy. From coastal flooding and widespread wind damage to extreme snow and blizzards further inland. This really was a once-in-a-generation storm. I'm going back to my office tomorrow (been working from home for the last couple days) and thanks to the bike that's not an issue, but it's going to be days and possibly weeks before everything gets completely back to normal. More info, facts and figures here.

Wednesday, 31 October 2012 - Happy (dark, wet, cold, and sandy) Halloween!

 
 
This is pretty much how a lot of east-coasters are feeling right about now after Hurricane Sandy passed through. Fed up...
 
Beat up...
 
And unfortunately many were killed (most of them in New York as it turns out). The death toll is different depending on the source but it's up around the 50-mark at the moment.

 
 
So after having to work from home for the last two days, my office building was open again today so I was back on the bike as always, and thank Christ! This gridlocked traffic stretched for miles, and it went nowhere. The bus system is back up and running but the subways are still down.
 
This is a common sight at the moment. Right above my head was a branch dangling from the power lines.
 
This is the Queensboro Bridge which I cross every day. At most I pass maybe 50 people across the whole length bridge (all 1.1km of it) but today it was hundreds! You can just make out two lanes there: one for cyclists and one for pedestrians. Well the fucking pedestrians didn't care about that so every cyclist trying to get across was yelling out for these assholes to move aside (except me, I let the air horn do my yelling - video here if you're curious to hear it ;)

 
 
 
Finally in Manhattan I headed straight for the floppy dick crane which has been all over the news, overhanging 57th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues - just five blocks north of my office in Midtown. Good luck sorting that out!

 
I'm not sure why but Seventh Avenue was completely closed (that's Times Square off in the distance). Elsewhere Broadway was also closed off, and right behind me here so too was Central Park. It's no doubt a complete mess in there.

 
 
After work I headed south, and it could only be described as eerie and surreal. Everything south of 34th Street is in total darkness after the power was shut down. Car headlights were all that illuminated anything, otherwise it was completely pitch-black once night had set in. Left is the intersection where Broadway crosses Fifth Avenue adjacent to Madison Square Park and the iconic Flatiron Building, and right is looking south along Fifth Avenue. Considering how bright and bustling New York City is 24/7, this is just unreal! Pedestrians had to walk around with flashlights, but in the residential areas families were still out trick-or-treating hehe. As for me, I was riding along with my eyes bulging, looking out for any sign of movement in front of me hahaha! I have lights on my bike but they barely illuminate the road. At some of the busier intersections, the bravest had the right of way.
 
Also all over the news is this residential building on Eighth Avenue. It's entire front facade collapsed in the 100km/h+ winds. Aside from car headlights off to the left, this whole shot was illuminated solely by my camera's built-in flash. Gotta be happy with that effort!

 
From there I continued to the southern tip of Manhattan island, and found they'd turned the power back on down here. This area was flooded by the storm surge and is still very soggy (and sandy). The noise of loud engines echoed out as they worked furiously to pump out flood water, here from Ground Zero...
 
...and here from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (the entrance is on the other side of that wall in the background) which I mentioned yesterday.
 
 
They're pumping onto adjacent roads where the water will flow into the drainage system as per usual and back out to sea. Occasionally, while trying to capture these shots, some bastard would drive really fast through the huge puddle on the road and drench me in sea water hehe. The way I ride it didn't take long to dry ;)
 
Back in Midtown, this was another common sight - whopping great queues at bus stops. The buses resumed an almost-normal service today but, as I mentioned, the Subway is still shut down due to flooding in the tunnels in Lower Manhattan and under the East River. Most of the subway lines are planned to be running again tomorrow though, albeit a reduced service while the flooding is dealt with, so I'm hoping to find only the usual 50 people on the Queensboro Bridge in the morning hehe.

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Page Comments


New Yorkers walk a lot (particularly in Manhattan where many both live and work), probably more so than anywhere else in the country in fact.
- Aaron

wow New Yorkers walking? and getting buses?
it does look really freaky
- Jen