Boy, only in New York can you hit the events of an entire newspaper front page in just about 5-10 square blocks. I was in Manhattan for a College Media Advisers’ conference, and took Monday morning to visit a Flagler College alum who had been working with Rudy Guiliani on his ill-fated campaign.
After hearing about that, I wandered outside his high-rise office building to stare in awe down the street at rescue efforts on that construction crane that crashed to Earth killing several people. Blocks later, I strolled past the homes of JP Morgan and Bear Stearns where one of the business world’s biggest news stories had just unfolded. Both were swarmed with news trucks and TV reporters.
And as I trudged on, I fought my way through the gathering crowds for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade down Fifth Avenue.
Wow, New York, you sure do pack a lot into just a few square blocks.
What a city!
It’s no wonder I love any chance I get to come here — just to walk the streets and feel that buzzing surge of energy that emanates from every person on the street, every crack in the pavement, and shoot, every honk of a cabbie’s horn. I just like to wander, picking up on things as I go. For instance, have you ever noticed all the little gobs of black, flattened petrified gum dotting the sidewalks? Must be millions of them. I wonder how many had been chewed by famous people — “look, that one’s Donald Trump’s!”
But all of that said, it’s not easy for a third-generation Floridian like me this time of year. No two ways about it, it’s downright cold. March can still be pretty brutal — last year at this same conference, it hailed and my kidneys got frostbite. I haven’t so much as touched an ice cube since.
It’s not near as bad this March, but for a Southerner like me, it’s testing my climatic limits. Shoot, if it’s not warm enough for flip-flops, I hibernate.
How do people live in this? It’s so foreign to me. I can’t grasp the whole concept, or even basic cold weather principles and rules, like how to properly use a scarf without accidentally strangling yourself. Nothing is worse than being on the street and having to ask a perfect stranger to help untangle you so you can breathe again.
I struggle with the constant bundling and un-bundling when leaving and entering buildings, and I search desperately like a man possessed for restaurants that serve soup so hot that it can burn the enamel off your teeth.
The wind in those chilled canyons of glass and steel poke and prod for any exposed spot on your body to exploit and gain entry. Once it finds one, it spreads out like a water leak and these horrible streams of cold air race beneath your layers of clothes.
My cheeks turn red like a Raggedy Ann doll, and when I don’t have my gloves on, it feels as if my hands have been run through a printing press. Fat, hungry-looking squirrels eye me curiously, maybe because they think I’m weak and would make an easy meal.
It’s tough.
Yet, somewhere in me there must be some blood of a Yankee. The urge hit me to go running, and all I had with me were running shorts and a thin long sleeve shirt. As ridiculous as it sounds, and despite the the blistering wind chill, I convinced myself to go out in it.
Even more amazing, I was in fewer clothes than these weather-hardened New Yorkers. They ran Central Park in long running pants, heavy sweatshirts, head bands that came down over their ears and of course with a Starbucks grande latte.
People looked at ME like I was crazy, like they thought I was an Eskimo. Me! The Southerner.
And I ran fast — I had to. In my meager Southern-climate gear, it was either that or end up a national story myself — “Man freezes to death while in mid-stride.” Just another news story for a busy 10 or so blocks.