before the firestorm

i personally cannot complain about the christmas weekend blizzard.

i don't have a car.

i don't need the subway or bus to get to work.

i wasn't stranded anywhere.

and: we have the best team at our condo--by 10am on monday they'd shoveled clean the widest swath of sidewalk in all of murray hill.

but it's hard not to be outraged after reading and hearing about conditions in other parts of the city, as a result of misjudgment and inaction at the local level.

(meanwhile, jersey knew what to do.)

***

here are a few shots from the very first afternoon, before the city got all stomped on and sloppy, and well before the effect of bloomberg & co's snafu was fully evident.

it was pretty, especially in madison square park...

all photos from december 27, 2010.

© anita aguilar

snow day: morning walk

i tuned in to the local morning news for the hour or so it took for me to have coffee and mentally brace myself for a walk to work in the -2 windchill. blizzard coverage is really no more informative than accuweather or mta sites, is it? and it's gets stale pretty quick what with the studio anchors "sending it out," again and again, to the same poor reporters stalking the same corner for "stranded stories" and "intrepid tourist tales." not sure why we need hours and hours of that kind of coverage but for a little while, i liked the soundtrack of it, essentially unchanged from the "old days" when we had to rely on AM radio and TV to find out about school closings. i daydreamed for some scrolling text that would say all small businesses in manhattan are closed...take off those ridiculous winter boots. but i didn't really mind having to go into work. i figured it would be a light day. and it would at least get me out of the house to snap a few photos.

not too much action on park avenue. but here's what i saw:

park ave

outside the morgan library and museum

i appreciate wanting to protect your feet (cold, wet toes equals no fun) but this plastic bag technique virtually ensures that this guy's gonna bite it. hard. and then he's cold and wet, bottom down...

not many grown-ups would look so cute in that hat.

all bundled up

generally unstoppable, but temporarily stuck...

union square