Greenpoint Avenue, East River, looking toward Manhattan


Greenpoint Avenue, East River, looking toward Manhattan


Water tower, Franklin Street

Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint, looking toward LIC

Last night between around 7:30pm, the sun was setting and everything looked like a Netherlandish painting. The light was doing amazing things.

The B62


Sunday evening kickball in McCarren Park.
Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the background. Beautiful.

Word, Franklin Street


Shayz Lounge, Franklin Street


Old Hollywood gets sarcastic, Franklin Street


Kent Street, trees intact


Random unlucky tree blown to the right, yet branches off the the left?


Brooklyn Label, Franklin Street. The only ones who go the plywood route.


Fallen umbrella, Franklin Street


East River Ferry, India Street. Guy wades in gross puddle for photo op. Ew.


East River Ferry, India Street. Lots of people walk through gross puddle to get to pier.
Cops soon come to encourage them to leave.

Well at least there is blogging until the phone and computer connection fail. Pre-emptive blogging! And now pizza! Tonight's pizza à la Irene includes artichokes, fresh mozzarella, zucchini, fresh basil and other goodies.

Well it looks like we'll be tissueless for the duration of the storm. Duane Reade closed at noon today.

Battened: cellar door


Unbattened: cellar door & metal garbage cans. The lids, they're battened.


Unbattened: this is not going to be pretty. At all.

NYC is on lock-down. The MTA shut everything down at noon today. But today is Saturday, August 27, the day before Hurricane Irene is due to hit. While we were running around the track this morning, I heard two runners saying, "Yeah the mayor is a fascist. He cancelled all events, and we could have run the Bronx Half today no problem." And I was like, oh yeah! That was today. That would be a bummer if that was your first Half today, after all that training and anticipating. My hubby ran it last year. But I digress.

I guess I was rather irked that they shut down the city a day early. I had to respond with Battened & Unbattened in Brooklyn. I struck out in Greenpoint at around 2:30pm with camera in one hand and umbrella in the other, expecting to see all the stores closed; but instead, found lots of people out and plenty of stores open. It made me feel better. Plus it never rained. Be sure to read all the picture captions. I got to vent about my true feeling about chain stores too :-).

In observing New York's pre-emptive frenzy, my conclusion: New Yorker's don't really know how to batten.

Battened?


Battened: garment bags & Hefty bags scotch-taped to windows.
So not really battened.


Battened on the top floor: x'ed windows,
but they get to keep their AC window unit.


Battened: Evacuating with provisions out of ZONE B. Whatevs.


Unbattened, but pre-broken.


Unbattened: all the Polish Stores are still open for biz, but the
Duane Reade & the Starbucks pre-emptively close. Chain stores. Bluck.


Starbucks has many typos. (Sbux in Gpoint) One customer does not let one
typo go uncorrected. But lets "insident" slide. Note: correction is made directly
on the window. Sign posted on the inside of the glass.


A cop telling ZONE B to evacuate. We were mostly outraged.


Unbattened: all Polish bakeries still open. That is nice :-)


Unbattened: the B43 still running! 2 1/2 hours after the noon cut-off.
Hmm. Conspiracy!



The Media.


Kindly Unbattened: our video store enforces a nice Irene policy.
Also, note their perfect spelling, unlike yucky chain stores.
Sbux, I am speaking about you.


Unbattened: thankfully no panic-lines in our 'hood.


Battened. Subways but not busses. Again, conspiracy?


Battened: with plastic. Okay.


Battened: yes tape and plastic will surely hold. Surely.

Over-battened.


Battened with a mattress. See the dude's white socks through the window
to the left? He's lying on another mattress. Not pictured: giant plate glass
window just above mattress. So again, not so battened.


Battened: the Chinese casino busses are moved to dryer ground,
just a wee bit outside of where they park. Like a half a block. Phew.


Battened: our water tower protectorate.

AARGH. (Humidity no likie.) (For safety purposes, our landlords de-installed our AC early this morning.) Which led to lots of emergency mopping as the condensation leaked across our wood floor and onto my husband's Saucony. Our landlords are very great, let that be noted. And it is their window, and in fact, their air conditioner, to do with as they judge.

Pictured above is window where the AC was. I'll look upon it as a pretty view. Except there's a storm coming, so it probably won't be pretty.


***
‎(I want to be here right now, curled up, asleep. Good night Irene. Your humidity woke me up at 2am Sunday and I didn't get back to sleep until 4:30am after I ate some yogurt & almonds because I was up so long, I got starving. Now it's Monday at 4:40pm. My eyeballs hurt. I just had an iced cappuccino. I think it's helping.)

Ominous skies over the Garment District. But look at the detail on those buildings. Very Gotham City. Hurricane Irene comes early and takes all of us umbrellaless people by surprise. Grrr.

I've read too much Weather.com and now am thoroughly freaked out by Hurricane Irene. 120 mph winds in NYC??? Yikes is all I can say. I wonder how garbage gnome will be in the storm? And also, who gave us garbage gnome? And why has he stuck around for so long?

Maybe there's a metaphor here. Just keep smiling and you can weather any storm. Okay, I'll take that as garbage gnome's message to me.