It’s been a week since a foot of snow fell on the city, and what was once fluff quickly turned into slush and has now hardened into ice. A string of below-freezing temperatures, with no real sign of a defrost coming, means things are likely to stay this way for a while.
And so we’ve adapted to the new geography of a haphazardly shoveled and plowed landscape: Pedestrians learned to walk in single-file lines, supers put out the trash on top of piles of snow, bus riders became mountain climbers, and everyone got mad at one another for the uncleared crosswalks. Some older and disabled New Yorkers have been left stranded at home. Stroller navigation is a nightmare. (The sidewalk, including the curb cut, is considered the responsibility of the property owner, while the road up to the curb cut is the Department of Sanitation’s domain.) Cars remain buried, and biking is a brave (and, often, poorly compensated gig-working) person’s game. Slowly things are getting cleared. The city deployed gigantic mesmerizing snow-melters because without them, in the acting Sanitation commissioner’s own words, the snow is “not going to go away anywhere anytime soon.”
