After Sandy: A View From Uptown

Sandy has passed through New York.  While she has wrought a great deal of havoc and destruction, up here in Harlem, where I live, we’re in good shape.  Other than an internet outtage, we’re fine!

Our night was quiet, after I figured out to put a chair against our apartment door to keep it from rattling every time someone walked through the building’s lobby.  This morning, Mickey and I went out for our walk.  This is what we saw:

There were actually a few patches of blue and some white cloud tufts in the sky this morning.  A welcome sight after the grayness of the past few days! Lots of twigs and small branches down on our block.  My sweet yellow tree is now totally naked, while the perpetually red-leafed tree across the street managed to retain her splendid foliage. So many leaves strewn all over Broadway, and, yet, the trees on the malls are still sporting much of their autumn finery.  Over on 149th Street, a tree toppled over on some cars, blocking the street.  I’m not an expert on these things, I’m just a tree-steward with the Million Trees organization, nonetheless, it seems to me that this lovely tree was victim to a treepit that was too shallow when it became saturated from the rain to support the tree’s root system and weight.  It’s sad to see such a beautiful creation downed!

I took Mickey home and gave him his breakfast before heading down to Riverbank State Park to see what happened there.  I was sad to see that the tree by the stairs leading down into the park, whose picture I took on Sunday afternoon,  had snapped and only a scarred stump remains.  More trees down by the ball fields and basketball court, but nothing serious.  All in all, no damage of much consequence.  We were very lucky up here!

Further into the park, I was curious to see if the geese were still there and was rewarded with the sight of them ambling across the path. They have taken up temporary residence in the park’s fields.  Some of them were swimming up and down stream.  There was an air of peace about them.  I walked over to the banks of the Hudson River.  Yesterday, the waters were angry and lapping over the rocks just inches beneath my feet.  Today, around 8:15 a.m., the waters were much more placid and beginning to recede.  I could see a couple of feet of rocks again. And over across the river, I caught the faintest glimmer of a rainbow appearing to sprout from the top of the building,  seeming to promise an end to stormy weather…for now.