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| A tale of two New Yorks: Sandy splits city but its residents band together | A tale of two New Yorks: Sandy splits city but its residents band together |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| On the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Wednesday, 36 hours after the storm, New York seems in full swing. Booksellers are back out on Columbus Avenue, the movie theaters are open, the nail salons are full. The New York City Marathon – which passes through the Upper East Side and Central Park – will go ahead on Sunday, because nobody has anything better to do than clean up millions of paper cups trampled underfoot by runners blocking the avenues. | On the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Wednesday, 36 hours after the storm, New York seems in full swing. Booksellers are back out on Columbus Avenue, the movie theaters are open, the nail salons are full. The New York City Marathon – which passes through the Upper East Side and Central Park – will go ahead on Sunday, because nobody has anything better to do than clean up millions of paper cups trampled underfoot by runners blocking the avenues. |
| But a few miles south, it's another city. There is no power anywhere in lower Manhattan, cellphone service is spotty, and many buildings have no water or heat. Residents who'd planned for a short blackout, as happened here for one day in 2003, are facing days without power – and, as a consequence, without food or supplies. | But a few miles south, it's another city. There is no power anywhere in lower Manhattan, cellphone service is spotty, and many buildings have no water or heat. Residents who'd planned for a short blackout, as happened here for one day in 2003, are facing days without power – and, as a consequence, without food or supplies. |
| Downtowners are streaming north to buy groceries or charge their phones, or else to work remotely when they can't do so from home. Outside the Ace Hotel, a few blocks north of the electricity cutoff point, people were huddled together at a station to recharge their devices, and in one coffee shop on Amsterdam Avenue no fewer than 20 Wi-Fi refugees were hunched over laptops. The gyms have been overloaded with downtowners taking showers, which has generated a strange economic divide: the tony Equinox chain sent out an email telling clients that no guests were allowed, while the less pricy New York Sports Club has swung open its doors to one and all. | Downtowners are streaming north to buy groceries or charge their phones, or else to work remotely when they can't do so from home. Outside the Ace Hotel, a few blocks north of the electricity cutoff point, people were huddled together at a station to recharge their devices, and in one coffee shop on Amsterdam Avenue no fewer than 20 Wi-Fi refugees were hunched over laptops. The gyms have been overloaded with downtowners taking showers, which has generated a strange economic divide: the tony Equinox chain sent out an email telling clients that no guests were allowed, while the less pricy New York Sports Club has swung open its doors to one and all. |
| Herman Luk, who works at a startup tech company, was coming up Sixth Avenue from his apartment in Tribeca, where he lives on an upper floor of a high-rise. | Herman Luk, who works at a startup tech company, was coming up Sixth Avenue from his apartment in Tribeca, where he lives on an upper floor of a high-rise. |
| "Water ran out yesterday morning," he explained, "and the emergency lights in the building died out. It's pitch black in the stairwell." He and his girlfriend made only moderate preparations; they filled their bathtub with water and bought a few supplies, but after last year's overhyped Hurricane Irene they decided not to stockpile. Now, Luk was coming uptown to buy provisions – everything near him is closed. | "Water ran out yesterday morning," he explained, "and the emergency lights in the building died out. It's pitch black in the stairwell." He and his girlfriend made only moderate preparations; they filled their bathtub with water and bought a few supplies, but after last year's overhyped Hurricane Irene they decided not to stockpile. Now, Luk was coming uptown to buy provisions – everything near him is closed. |
| "Uptown it's like it never happened, just like Irene," he said. "Downtown, with no power and no water, you feel like you're living in the south in hurricane season – except you live 14 floors up." | "Uptown it's like it never happened, just like Irene," he said. "Downtown, with no power and no water, you feel like you're living in the south in hurricane season – except you live 14 floors up." |
| Luk needed more than an hour to get uptown, first on a free bus and then on foot, and no wonder: the roads are choked with Bangkok-style traffic. On an average weekday the New York subway system logs 5.3m rides; push all of those onto the streets and this is what you get. Yellow cabs are permitted to take multiple fares, as they have during previous transit strikes, and thousands of interloping gypsy cabs are in the mix as well. But it takes ages to get anywhere, and even a bike won't help much; the avenues of midtown are glorified parking lots, and matters aren't helped by the closure of 57th Street, home to the half-destroyed crane alongside the most expensive residential project in town. You might as well walk. | Luk needed more than an hour to get uptown, first on a free bus and then on foot, and no wonder: the roads are choked with Bangkok-style traffic. On an average weekday the New York subway system logs 5.3m rides; push all of those onto the streets and this is what you get. Yellow cabs are permitted to take multiple fares, as they have during previous transit strikes, and thousands of interloping gypsy cabs are in the mix as well. But it takes ages to get anywhere, and even a bike won't help much; the avenues of midtown are glorified parking lots, and matters aren't helped by the closure of 57th Street, home to the half-destroyed crane alongside the most expensive residential project in town. You might as well walk. |
| At the Museum of Modern Art, a queue of stir-crazy tourists snaked all the way through the lobby, out the front door, and halfway down 53rd Street. But the New Museum, down on the Bowery, is shut, while in Chelsea, home to the city's leading commercial art galleries, power remains out and flooding has destroyed untold millions of dollars in paintings and sculpture. The Metropolitan Opera is going back on tonight; Off-Broadway is dark for the foreseeable future. The big department stores along 5th Avenue are open, and doing a fair bit of business; the boutiques of Soho and Nolita are shuttered. | At the Museum of Modern Art, a queue of stir-crazy tourists snaked all the way through the lobby, out the front door, and halfway down 53rd Street. But the New Museum, down on the Bowery, is shut, while in Chelsea, home to the city's leading commercial art galleries, power remains out and flooding has destroyed untold millions of dollars in paintings and sculpture. The Metropolitan Opera is going back on tonight; Off-Broadway is dark for the foreseeable future. The big department stores along 5th Avenue are open, and doing a fair bit of business; the boutiques of Soho and Nolita are shuttered. |
| The cutoff for electricity, at least on the west side, is 25th Street. At Seventh Avenue the stationery store on the north side of 25th is open for business, while the grocery store on the south side is shuttered, its inventory rotting away. Some of the busiest sites in the city are the delis and bodegas one or two blocks north of the power divide; hundreds and hundreds of downtowners stop at the first open business they see for coffee and the New York's traditional express breakfast of scrambled eggs on a bagel. | The cutoff for electricity, at least on the west side, is 25th Street. At Seventh Avenue the stationery store on the north side of 25th is open for business, while the grocery store on the south side is shuttered, its inventory rotting away. Some of the busiest sites in the city are the delis and bodegas one or two blocks north of the power divide; hundreds and hundreds of downtowners stop at the first open business they see for coffee and the New York's traditional express breakfast of scrambled eggs on a bagel. |
| The contrast is even starker when the sun goes down. "Last night, it looks like an apocalypse happened," said Stephanie Lee, an attorney who lives in Stuyvesant Town, the massive residential development on the East River. The buildings there took on three feet of water; there's now no electricity, no heat, no internet access, and only intermittent water. She was headed back to her seventh-floor apartment to fetch clothes and food before moving in with a friend uptown. She doesn't feel unsafe, but the neighborhood is being abandoned; at night, without street lamps, "it feels like Gotham in Batman." | The contrast is even starker when the sun goes down. "Last night, it looks like an apocalypse happened," said Stephanie Lee, an attorney who lives in Stuyvesant Town, the massive residential development on the East River. The buildings there took on three feet of water; there's now no electricity, no heat, no internet access, and only intermittent water. She was headed back to her seventh-floor apartment to fetch clothes and food before moving in with a friend uptown. She doesn't feel unsafe, but the neighborhood is being abandoned; at night, without street lamps, "it feels like Gotham in Batman." |
| Tuesday night in the West Village, on the corner of Bleecker Street and 8th Avenue, a small grocery store that remained open had no power for its freezers or refrigerators, but was doing brisk flashlight-aided business in tuna fish and potato chips. The cashier didn't even flinch when a woman asked if she could pay with a credit card. A few bars were open, all lit by candles and with the predictable chalkboard outside advertising plenty of booze, but they weren't doing much business. The one activity that everyone seems to engage in: taking Instagram photos of felled trees. | Tuesday night in the West Village, on the corner of Bleecker Street and 8th Avenue, a small grocery store that remained open had no power for its freezers or refrigerators, but was doing brisk flashlight-aided business in tuna fish and potato chips. The cashier didn't even flinch when a woman asked if she could pay with a credit card. A few bars were open, all lit by candles and with the predictable chalkboard outside advertising plenty of booze, but they weren't doing much business. The one activity that everyone seems to engage in: taking Instagram photos of felled trees. |
| Not far from anyone's mind is that other disaster, 11 years ago, that cut downtown off from the rest of New York. But while the confusion and camaraderie of lower Manhattan reminds us of the days after 9/11, the mood remains reassuringly pleasant, at least so far. | Not far from anyone's mind is that other disaster, 11 years ago, that cut downtown off from the rest of New York. But while the confusion and camaraderie of lower Manhattan reminds us of the days after 9/11, the mood remains reassuringly pleasant, at least so far. |
| "There's a generator in Stuy Town, and one guy last night begged to use my phone charger," Lee said. "I thought he had an emergency call to make. Turned out he'd met some girl the night before and he wanted to see if she'd texted him." But whether the mood downtown remains as light this evening, and in the unknown powerless days to come, is far less certain. | "There's a generator in Stuy Town, and one guy last night begged to use my phone charger," Lee said. "I thought he had an emergency call to make. Turned out he'd met some girl the night before and he wanted to see if she'd texted him." But whether the mood downtown remains as light this evening, and in the unknown powerless days to come, is far less certain. |
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