Snowbound NYC feels the filth of winter
The Northeastern U.S. has become accustomed to mild winters over the last decade. Prior to the latest snow blizzard that pummeled much of the country, online newsreels were commemorating the 30th anniversary of the blizzard of 1996. Now we have a new milestone to mark in the history of the five boroughs’ struggles with snow.
The Northeastern U.S. had weeks of below-freezing temperatures immediately following an exceptionally large snowstorm. The usual melt that happens in the days after a storm hasn’t happened. I can’t remember any time in my life that so much snow sat around for so long afterwards.
While the roads may be cleared in theory, large snowbanks have turned two-lane streets into one-lane streets. Slippery snow and ice patches make driving in the city more dangerous than usual.
The sidewalks and crosswalks are in an even more dismal state. Plows push large quantities of snow into icy walls that solidify into chunky walls of hard-packed ice and snow.
The city’s Department of Sanitation continued to plow the same roads and did little or nothing about freeing up sidewalks, bus stops, and crosswalks. I recently stood behind a plow wall at a bus stop and watched a snow plow drop loads of salt on an already dry road while piles of filthy, frozen snow sat nearby untouched.
Even with the understanding that this was an unprecedented storm, the city’s response rates poorly. Long stretches of sidewalk, including those abutting public parks and city-run spaces, remain largely inaccessible weeks later, thin paths cut by the feet of harried pedestrians the only things working to clear any walking space.
Snow makes New York City look beautiful for about three hours. Snow in NYC quickly turns into a mosaic of street and sidewalk filth, collecting dog urine, car exhaust, and the varied effluvium that regularly pulses across our sidewalks and curbs. After several weeks, the hardened snowbanks sport a spattering of grotesque shame, rife with collected bacteria.
New York’s sidewalks and crosswalks, already a crowded place of give-and-take silent negotiations of movement, have become more challenging to navigate. Having a good pair of waterproof boots is paying big dividends, and I am trudging through frozen sidewalk tundra like an over-the-hill urban sherpa.
Warmer temperatures in the weeks ahead promise relief through melting snow, but city authorities should take stock of this storm and improve their response. In the meantime, New Yorkers are waiting for the Great Snow Melt of 2026.
The universal benevolence of a snow day
This winter has been a strange one for the Northeast and New York in particular. We’ve been absent the traditional snowstorms that usually blanket our area a few times each season. We had a slushy sleet in November that snarled traffic and quickly dissipated and a few snowfalls that failed to bring much snow volume.
This past Sunday night we had our most commonplace snowstorm yet, and the predictions were serious enough for New York City to cancel its public school classes that following Monday.
That Monday morning, with the full weight of a snowstorm having made its mark on our city, I decided to not have a snow day and went to work. The snowpocalyspe that had been predicted did not come to pass, at least not on the roads in Flushing. They were clear at 5:30 in the morning and I went through my normal routine and got to work in great time.
So many were taking a snow day, it served as extra motivation to make it into the office. I could have likely remained at home and few would have blamed me. The buses and subways were less crowded than they usually are.
Enjoying the relative quiet of the hushed urban snowscape, broken by the crunching of my office-appropriate rain/snow boots on the un-shoveled sidewalks, it was a harder walk to the bus stop through the crusted sludge.
A few years ago, a snowstorm that was raging through the night and into the commuting time of the morning meant that the office where I worked declared a “work from home” day. It was one of the most productive work days I have ever had. I managed to draft an 800-word op-ed that morning on top of all my usual work, and the lack of commuting hell made everyone generally happier.
The greatest snow day I ever had was in an April of my elementary school years, when there was a spring snow storm in the Northeastern U.S. and I got to take the day off from Catholic School. No more stifling white shirt and blue fake tie with the stenciled sEs (Saint Eugene’s School, Yonkers, New York) for the day. I waged war against my own blood kin and neighbors through snowball fights, barricaded into a snow fortress that numbed my hands and feet, and cherished respite in the warm caverns of our two-bedroom apartment.
Making it into work during a snow day is an easy way to prove dedication to your job without doing any extra work. There’s a saying attributed to Woody Allen that 80 percent of success in life is showing up. On a snow day that jumps to 95 percent. It feels good to be one of the few and the brave at the office when things are quiet. In a city as crowded as New York, you take your quieter times whenever you can.
With today’s technology, the central office as we know it is due for an overhaul. With public transportation unfortunately on the decline, people who live only a few miles from their job commute for more than an hour. That hour can be spent more productively at home, and employees will be happier. We can’t say the same for schools.
What I fear now is that a deep freeze coming later this week will create an icy menace on sidewalks and roads, including black ice that can be harder to see and prepare for.
But no matter what shape our school and office lives take, the allure of the snow day will not be completely gone. Whether you take it at home or elsewhere, enjoy the snow day.
Matthew Sheahan 
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