From Brooklyn, Post-Sandy

First off, I just want to extend a huge thanks to all those friends and family who checked up on my before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy hit NYC. I am so lucky to have so many people out there who care about my well-being and it really means a lot!

I’m happy to say that I also was very lucky with the storm and never lost power, and didn’t have flooding. I’m very close to the water, but I’m up on a hill leading to the highest point in Brooklyn. I had a sleepless night listening to the howling wind and the branches blowing around on the tree outside my closet window, which stayed strong throughout and held onto all its limbs. I walked around the neighborhood the next morning, and there were lots of branches down in Green-Wood Cemetery (the above is of some in front of the new Gottschalk angel statue), but nothing as catastrophic as what I’ve seen in the other coastal areas and what continues to be a crisis in lower Manhattan with their loss of power.

I also completely forgot today was Halloween because things have been so surreal. It’s spooky enough to look across and see half of Manhattan in darkness, to see a whole section of a neighborhood leveled to the ground by flames, to see poor Coney Island battered by the wind and waves, to see shelters overflowing and Coast Guard helicopters flying by my window.

I’ve been out for work reporting on the impact of the storm on some arts organizations (see my story on Gowanus here), but I wanted to do a post here to let everyone know I was okay and to share some photos. I hope everyone out there is making it through and I hope the subways are up and running soon so we can see each other!

Part of this building collapsed into the street a block from me, but in its state I think it might have been destined for a collapse anyway.

The wind tossed around some motorcycles around the corner.

This morning we finally got some blue skies post-storm.

Unfortunately, the clouds returned by evening. This isn’t a very good photo so it’s hard to tell, but the whole left of the photo is where lower Manhattan would usually be lighting the skyline and is dark. Compare to this photo from the same vantage point last March:

I was in DUMBO earlier today and looked across the water, and you could see where the last rope of lights on the Brooklyn Bridge were extinguished into the darkness that was setting on Manhattan. No, I don’t really need Halloween this year to spook me.