12.21.09: The weekend brought the snows

The weekend brought the snows

From atop Pug Hill off Fifth Avenue between 78th and 79th Streets at Central Park. 2:35 PM. Photo: JH.

December 21, 2009. The shortest day/ longest night of the year, the start of the Winter or Yule Season in the Northern Hemisphere.

The weekend brought the snows which ultimately dominated just about everybody’s life one way or another. The forecasters had it arriving like a blizzard on early Friday evening. No. Then early Saturday morning. No. Then Saturday afternoon the flurries began (barely – see photos).

I had a dinner date with friends. We discussed moving it up to an earlier time since we were told we’d were going to be inundated. Messages came from farther South, like Carol Joynt in Washington, about the blizzard-like snows they were having. I was beginning to think we weren’t going to get anything in New York. Boo-hoo for those of us who love the snow.

I took this photo about 1:30 Saturday afternoon, anxiously (like a kid) awaiting the Big Blizzard. Much to my disappointment, the flurries (you can see the slight white of them on the road next to the parked cars) never came. Looking south on East End Avenue, and looking north. I learned yesterday that in fact the storm stalled just before it reached at about early Saturday afternoon, and didn't start moving north again until about 7 pm, explaining my "disappointment."

Sunday early afternoon after the storm with the roads cleared and salted.

However, when I left the apartment at 7:45 to get a taxi, the snow was blowing in and the temperatures were dropping. It took me twenty minutes (and walking a few blocks north and west -- freezing) to get a cab. Traveling had become hazardous with the snow turning to ice on the cab windshield, impairing our vision, and the roads very slippery.

When we finished dinner at 10:30 and got out of the restaurant (Swifty’s – which was packed), it was blizzard conditions. And finding an empty or even on-duty cab was difficult to nil.

Duane Hampton's Christmas tree plus close-up. The decorations shown in closeup were painted many years ago by her late husband Mark Hampton for their first family trees.

We walked several blocks to 79th Street. My friends, going to the West Side, got the first cab. About ten minutes later I finally got one that was willing to take me over to East End. After that it snowed all night. When I awoke at 9:15, it had stopped and the world around us was snow white and hushed.

I went out yesterday afternoon to get a few shots of the world down by the River.

Sunday afternoon about 2 I went out to photograph the neighborhood -- the guy shoveing out his truck in front of the Chapin School and then a walk through Carl Schurz Park down to the East River and along John Finley Walk (the Promenade) over to East 83rd Street looking west.

Paige Peterson's shots from her apartment on Central Park West in the 80s, looking south and then north, at 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning.

JH, I learned later, had gone out late Saturday night after midnight to do his magic with the mini-digital and then ventured out again yesterday afternoon with the digital. I should note that as of this writing, I have not seen JH’s photos, and won’t until the Diary goes on line, so I know I am in for a treat along with you dear reader ...