I'm sitting here watching TV news coverage of snow upon snow falling on New York and surrounding areas. Here and there, it looks beautiful and fun but for the most part, all I can think of is that I hope people are not suffering due to lack of heat or electricity or food or emergency services. The one time I was in a blizzard in New York, I watched the upper stories of a very tall building on 7th Avenue burn…and there was no way the fire department could get to it, nor were the hydrants of any use.
All Broadway shows have canceled their performances for tonight. Apparently though, Saturday Night Live is doing a new show. The folks who trek in there to be its live audience sure deserve to see a good one.
That one blizzard I was in was almost the magnitude of this one, at least in Manhattan, but its strength was not anticipated so the shows didn't close. Some friends of mine and I went to see Nine at the 46th Street Theater, which is now the Richard Rodgers. I believe this was 1983. It was a light-to-moderate snowfall when we went in and when we came out, New York looked like a Christmas tree that had been seriously over-flocked and there was a fierce, chilling wind. No cars were going anywhere — the parked ones were buried — and the subway wasn't running. My friends and I trudged in the snow — two steps forward, one step back — back to our hotel, stopping halfway at the Carnegie Deli for soup. The waiters at the Carnegie were reassuringly unbothered by the overabundance of white outside.
Last I heard, the Carnegie remains closed…a pity. I'll bet there are people in that town who could use that soup tonight. To bathe in if not to eat. Stay warm, folks.