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PHOTO: Landa Towns
Story by Debralee Santos
Photos by Debralee Santos, Landa Towns and Jay Franco
"Pretty good business tonight,” said Linell Lantigua from her post as hostess at New Leaf Café.
While many local supermarkets and drugstores were being mobbed by anxious shoppers who emptied shelves of their bottled water and canned goods, others in northern Manhattan chose to spend this past Friday night before Level One Hurricane Irene’s arrival dining out – all the way out, sipping cocktails al fresco at New Leaf Café in Fort Tryon Park.
New Leaf was busy on Saturday and Sunday in anticipation of the fierce winds and heavy rains predicted. Jay Gould, New Leaf’s manager, explained it thusly: “People [would] want to have a good time before they locked themselves up in their homes for the next two days.”
And with the city’s transit system closed after noon on Saturday, northern Manhattan residents found their travel options even more limited over the weekend.
PHOTO: Jay Franco
For Maria Maldonado, long-time Inwood resident, just the word “hurricane,” whatever its predicted strength, was enough to make her nervous. Growing up in Puerto Rico, she knew that hurricanes, tropical storms and the like could wreak havoc when you least expected it.
“Hay que tener cuidado; no podemos relajar con esto [We must be careful; we can’t take it lightly],” she said from her kitchen, where she was organizing cans of vegetables and candles late into Friday night.
Others disagreed, and found quite a bit of humor to mine from the elements.
PHOTO: Jay Franco
Mayor Bloomberg, unlike during the winter holiday storms of 2010, was a visible and frequent presence. By the time the storm hit the city on Sunday, the mayor had held nearly ten press conferences.
He held forth on evacuations, parks and transit system closing, storm winds, and sea walls. And as has been his custom for years, after speaking in English, Mayor Bloomberg often switched into Spanish, with unique results.
In response, local writer Rachel Figueroa-Levin, who bills herself as “JewYorican,” and maintains a fake Twitter account called “ElBloombito,” in which she parodies Mayor Bloomberg’s attempts at Spanish, had fresh material.
A typical post from “ElBloombito” on Twitter, which now boasts over 10,000 followers: “Los trainos y el bussos son muy operationo. Go to worko. No excuso!” to remind New York City residents that the transit system was again operational.
And so it was.
PHOTO: Debralee Santos
Hurricane Irene had, thankfully, been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time its tempered fury hit northern Manhattan. While there were punches of heavy rains and strong winds, Irene left El Alto relatively unscathed.
The Office of Emergency Management (OEM) reported that only 27 people had sought shelter over the weekend at one of the area’s central evacuation sites, George Washington High School. “Very little activity,” said an OEM representative.
Trains and buses were operating by 6 a.m. for the Monday morning commute, and there was relatively little damage reported.
At The Pinehurst, the residential co-op building at 447 Fort Washington Avenue, there was little to suggest there was a natural phenomenon – or disaster – afoot.
“Only 10 inches of rain have been recorded as the high water mark in the inner courtyard,” reported Steve Wolgast, webmaster for the building’s site. And while sandbags were in place, there was no reported damage.
Rafael Martinez, a livery cab driver in Washington Heights who holds a master’s degree in engineering from the Dominican Republic, was philosophical about the City’s brush with Irene.
PHOTO: Jay Franco
“Anything could have happened,” he said, as he surveyed the streetscape from the wheel of his Lincoln Town Car. He had ferried a number of nervous passengers from the Bronx, he explained, to family homes in Brooklyn late into Saturday evening, and had traversed rain-slicked roads.
“Fuimos muy afortunados en esta cuidad [We were very lucky in the City],” he said, noting the minor earthquakes that had also occurred in the past week.
”Muy afortunados [Very lucky].”
The following are some of the images from northern Manhattan’s brush with “Hurricane Irene,” after it had been downgraded to tropical storm status.
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