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The scene on 42nd Street. 6:05 PM. Photo: Dennis Karr.
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Torrential rains in the early morning yesterday, and a threat of it all day afterwards. But no. Then, during rush hour on Lexington Avenue just south of 42nd Street, a steam pipe underground burst and exploded out on to the avenue.
I heard about it first from our advertising director Gail Karr via email who’d heard from her husband Dennis who works in the area and had heard the noise outside his office window. “A steam pipe” were the first reports.
I didn’t think much about it until I heard from a friend in Michigan a few minutes later, asking me if I were “all right” and did I “hear the explosion,” that it was all over the television news.
I was, fortunately, all right, and no, I didn’t hear the explosion which is more than 40 blocks south of me. Again, fortunately I didn’t hear the explosion. You don’t, in this city, hear the noises miles away. Thankfully; otherwise no one would be able to bear living here.
Then JH reported in from his quick channel surfing. “They’re treating a pipe explosion like it’s World War III,” he observed about the television news. Why of course; that’s entertainment.
However, our mayor was on the scene when the facts were gathered, and he said:
“What we do know is this evening at about 5:57, a call came in for an explosion on 41st and Lexington,” the mayor said. “And there is no reason to believe whatsoever that this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure.”
I have to say that I never listened to our mayor in quite the same way I do these days. Because I believe he will be a Presidential candidate, I listen for the potential (as President). Today was a good example. An explosion occurs, people are hurt, frightened, damage is sustained along with injuries (one man had a cardiac arrest). The TV news treats it like it might be another 9/11 preying on our constant fears. But the mayor steps up and explains it. In simple terms. What it was, what it did and not to worry; everything will be all right. Simple. Then he adds that the thing we really have to be concerned about is the asbestos that might have gone into the air.. Mr. Common Sense. Mr. Level-headed. Mr. No Need For Panic Folks. Can you remember the last time we had a leader like that? Not a golden orator, or a Bill Clinton kinda speechifier, he talks turkey, in language everyone can understand.
Many New Yorkers are familiar with these steam pipe explosions. It’s a wonder they don’t occur more often considering the stress we put on the system. I remember one on 55th and Madison a few years ago which I fortunately just missed being present at. It blew the manhole cover sixty feet up. I don’t know where it came down. No one was hurt that time, which is a wonder because our streets in midtown are always jammed with pedestrians (and cars). The most memorable thing about it to me was the transformation the steam caused on the building facades: they were clean, pristine from the hot flash of steam.
Although we had 44 million tourists last year there are millions more who are afraid of or don’t like the city. There are a lot of those. As a New Yorker, I’m not quite sure why people feel that way. Although I recall years ago a friend coming to visit from out of town (he was living in Minneapolis at the time). He came back to the apartment one afternoon and said: “There are so many people everywhere, all over the streets.” I thought it was a funny description of the city because I never thought of it that way. New York after all is The People. That’s what it is. It’s the Big Apple; chomp-chomp. And if you can make here, like the song says; well, you won’t forget it.
So New Yorkers live with all kinds of disruptions and confrontations and potential catastrophes. With the sounds of the city everywhere – the horns, the sirens, the buses belching, the choppers whirling even the air conditioners humming heavily in waves across the humid, hot summer night. A million people moving every which way at every which speed.
These things can stop us in our tracks at times, leave us in wonder or confounding, but then you get on with it because New York never waits around. Ever. |
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