Well this has been quite a snowstorm. A blizzard in the area left approximately 2 feet, more or less, of snow although Central Park didn’t qualify for blizzard status as it did not get windy enough, long enough. But with 20 inches, it’s still quite an event.
It’s now early Monday afternoon which is normally a workday, but today much of the workforce is getting to experieince what all of us have hopefully experienced many times when we were younger, i.e. a snowday. You remember being elated when you were a kid when school was closed for the day. What could be better in life? Kids and especially teachers LIVE for those days. Now today, the rest of the workforce, for the most part, is having the same experience.
Why? Because, almost all of the commuter transit systems are shut down. The Long Island Railroad is shut down. Metro North is shut down. The 3 major airports are shut down. NJ Transit buses are shut down. The NJ Transit trains are delayed, the subways are delayed and I got up late.
So now what.? Shovel, shovel, shovel, shovel, shovel. That’s right. Alternate side parking is canceled of course. It will probably be canceled all week as cars won’t have anywhere to move as they sanitation trucks will be removing snow all week but you won’t know alternate side is canceled until that day or the night before. But based on the past, I predict it’s for the week. We’ll see.
But here’s an amazing thing! Feeding the meters coins was canceled today. That’s the first time I’ve heard that one. It may have occurred at some point in the past, but I don’t remember.
Anyway, it’s an exciting day here in New York. You should stop by if you can find a way to get here. Otherwise, I guess you’re stuck watching the boob tube for details.
As I am not a TV watcher, my mother informed me earlier today of the dispute occurring between Cablevision and ABC – Disney in the amount of $40 million and the threat of pulling the ABC station from Cablevision’s millions of New York Metro area televisions as of this Saturday night. Obviously they are using the people and the upcoming Academy Awards as bait in this ridiculous situation.
Well, I went ahead and have been reading up on the situation online and cannot believe what I’m seeing. This is like I’m watching a bunch of kindergarten kids both trying to get their way.
If you go to Cablevision’s website you can see a video on the situation, of course, from their viewpoint. They are claiming that ABC wants $40 million dollars from them or the station will longer be available as of this Saturday night. What’s never been stated in anything I read is WHEN was this $40 invoice requested? In the last week? Last month? Last year? This is VERY unclear. And if I knew this info it might help to determine who’s right.
Now go to the ABC website. I couldn’t believe what I saw. They have a page that is accusing Cablevision of threatening to drop ABC. Now everything is SO clear! And they do not make any statements to explain their side of the story. Great. Thanks for helping me to stay confused.
I’m not done. Do some more reading online and you’ll learn that Disney is the one demanding the $40 million. Now I know Disney owns ABC but don’t they own other things too? So is it Disney who’s going to pull the plug or is it ABC? Or is it just both of them as one entity?
So now what? Everything is just crystal clear, isn’t it? I can’t get the truth and the full picture here as of today, but maybe others will chime in and enlighten this New Yorker as to what has transpired over time with this whole money debacle.
While walking around Central Park on the afternoon of August 24, 2009, I met up with Neil who works for the Central Park Conservancy and had a conversation with him about the massive and difficult job they have been undertaking and still have to clean up the severe damage that occurred from the storm on August 19, 2009.
If you watch the videos I will be posting on this blog, you will see the effect of the storm’s wrath on the park. It was quite devastating to various areas of this beautiful oasis in Manhattan. And because the Central Park Conservancy is a non profit organization with a budget that is 85% funded by donations and only 15% funded by the city, this unexpected catastrophe has created a financial challenge for them.
As their original budget did not include having to hire tree cutters to cut down hundreds of trees from the storm as well as trucks to haul away the hundreds of logs, they really could use more donations from the public to pay for the cleanup and replanting efforts that will be taking place well into the future for years to come.
Although these are very difficult economic times for most of us, if you are reading this post and would like to contribute something to help with these cleanup and replanting efforts, please click the link below.
Here’s the video of my conversation with Neil.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. What happened on the evening of August 19, 2009 will not be forgotten any time soon.
The first clue to problems existing was a call from my mother on my answering machine on the morning of August 20th, stating that Central Park and the Riverside Drive area on the Upper Westside of Manhattan had a tremendous amount of damage from the previous night’s storm. Since I didn’t see anything wrong outside my apartment window, I didn’t think much of the message. It didn’t even cross my mind that my car was parked on Riverside Drive, as every day my car is moved to a different place due to the alternate side parking regulations.
However, several hours later, after leaving home and walking to my car to meet up with a group of high school friends for a concert, I saw tree cutters and their trucks, lots of people waiting and looking around and Riverside Drive blocked off by the police. At this point in time, it became clear that something was wrong and then I remembered where I was parked and was hoping all was well. Well all was not well! As I approached my car, I saw the back windshield completely gone and tree branches and glass were all over and inside my car. I was devastated!
But then I saw another car in the distance that had a badly smashed roof and knew others were even worse off than me. A Triple A truck pulled up after helping some other people on Riverside Drive and they helped me to clean off enough of the glass so I could drive the car to New Jersey and park it inside the garage at my mother’s house and then I would still be able to meet up with my friends for the concert reunion.
So my friend met me at my mom’s house and I called Geico, my insurance company, in the car as we drove to meet our other friends for an early dinner before the concert. Arrangements were made to fix the broken windshield the next day in New Jersey. Kudos to Geico for their quick and efficient support. (And I am not being paid to say that!)
I will post some pictures of the broken windshield later that I took with my cell phone after I download them to my computer. Meanwhile, the video below shows some of the cleanup of trees that fell in Central Park. I shot numerous videos of the storm’s debris in Central Park and will be posting them online soon.
Here’s a video of the tree eating machine that sucked a tree into its belly in a flash. Don’t get me near one these things!