September 17, 2010

Insularity

I've spent one evening in New York City in my entire life, so my view of the place is skewed by books, magazine articles, movies and television. That's why a story like this boggles me. I read these paragaphs in a story about the storm that hit the city yesterday

Buildings and houses were severely damaged, thousands of customers lost electricity and many commuters were inconvenienced.

But destroyed were thousands of trees — trees torn out of sidewalks, others flung 30 or 40 feet through the air, still others shorn of branches, cracked in two.

and thought, "thousands of trees? Where are they?" When I think of NYC I think of concrete canyons and jam-packed sidewalks.

I need to go see the city.

Posted by Linkmeister at September 17, 2010 03:36 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Lots of trees here in NYC, and not just in Central Park. Much of midtown Manhattan is sparse on trees, but the boroughs have plenty of them. We had a number of them uprooted here in Riverdale (the Bronx) in last month's tornado, which also knocked out our power, so I can certainly sympathize with my fellow New Yorkers in Brooklyn and Queens!

Posted by: Elayne Riggs at September 18, 2010 03:09 AM

The NY Times has a photo gallery of pictures showing some of the damage. The gallery has some 430-odd photos. I know a number of the neighborhoods in the photos; in fact yesterday I took a bus through Middle Village and the downed trees in Juniper Valley Park looked terrible. And it's the older, large trees that were damaged the most.

Posted by: PurpleGirl at September 18, 2010 03:39 AM

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Posted by: N in Seattle at September 18, 2010 07:22 AM

Thanks, New Yorkers!

N, I didn't get around to reading that till I was about 40, and when I did I was desperately sorry I hadn't read it years earlier. Besides, that's Brooklyn! ;)

Posted by: Linkmeister at September 18, 2010 09:04 AM