Snow

Elizabeth Zelvin

Although they called it a classic nor’easter, New York City was undeterred by yesterday's dramatically anticipated snow. Leonardo the plasterer (yep, that’s his name, and the super says he’s a Leonardo of plastering) arrived on time from his home in the Bronx to fix the ceiling of my shower, which had been shedding plaster dust on my head, if not accumulating in drifts, every time I took a shower. Traffic was moving outside my window (and seven stories down) on my street on the Upper West Side. Dogs and pedestrians were out and about. I was a little disappointed.

Last week, when areas further south and west got buried, we got no snow at all. This time, it started to fall later than expected. That’s why the city didn’t get anywhere near immobilized.
The predicted time was midnight, when very little is moving and the snow accumulates on the street as well as the sidewalk with only a few buses and taxis to tamp it down as it falls. If that had happened, we would have woken to a winter wonderland, even if it didn’t last all day.

The large institution where my husband works, a thirty-block walk for him and inaccessible to his co-workers when transportation from the suburbs and the outer boroughs becomes a problem, made the decision to be closed on Wednesday in advance, to his relief. More often, he has to trudge to work at the beginning of a blizzard and then fight his way back when it gets worse and they send everybody home. We could have celebrated the snow day by sleeping late—if the plasterer hadn’t arrived bright and early.
We could have spent the day in our cozy apartment staying warm and dry—if my printer hadn’t decided this Tuesday was a good day to die. So we bundled up and trekked the half mile to Staples (remember that shopping in Manhattan does not involve a car), got immediate service, and staggered back home with a spiffy new all-in-one. We even managed to install it and get it to work wirelessly.

By four in the afternoon, the storm was still raging, the snow was piled higher on the parked cars along our street,
the rooftops, and the trees in the hidden gardens tucked away behind the brownstones and apartment buildings of New York.

Today, the sun is shining. I may put on my boots and take a walk in Central Park, where the snow will be pristine—for about five minutes.