From my apartment on the 4th floor, overlooking 3rd Avenue and 83rd Street on the Upper East Side, I can always see a lot of street activity, businesses, and hundreds of apartments. Being shut up in this place as the storm came and went, I found myself looking outside a lot. The weather rarely made me nervous – there was very little rain, and the wind though sustained never seemed to reach a fever pitch. I know it was a very different story downtown and across the rivers…
Still I was impressed by things I saw outside my windows. Very late Saturday night, I was surprised to see NYC sanitation workers still picking up garbage. Clearly they were trying to get as much as they could before the weather prevented them from working anymore. All day Sunday I noticed the grocery store downstairs receiving deliveries of water, vegetables, dairy, etc. I was grateful to these truck drivers for doing their work right up until the final hours.
But even when the storm really got going, the street was never empty of people. Every time I looked out I saw people heading into or out of the 7-11 on the corner, the delivery guy in a rain parka running non-stop for the pizza place (which normally closes at 11 pm, but apparently stayed open throughout Monday night), and people popping into the Irish pub, which is interestingly called “The Gael.” And a lot of folks apparently didn’t know that the buses weren’t running, because I repeatedly saw people standing at the bus shelter looking bewildered, and obviously very happy when a taxi pulled up to take them where they needed to go. Even at the hurricane’s worst, taxis were on the street.
Looking out at all this, it occurred to me that, in times like these, workers that we take for granted – such as store clerks, delivery people, and taxi drivers – are revealed for their true value. These people weren’t just providing services to the neighborhood last night, they were performing a ministry. They kept the lights on, and not just in a literal way. I could not count the number of neighbors who were helped in some way by these people who kept working through the night. There’s a kind of heroism in that.
– Kevin
