Hot and Steamy Here in the City
Some New Yorker’s de-camp to the Hampton’s, others to Cape Cod, to escape the heat of the city that is New York in summer. I go to the dentist. Twice, this week!
The heat is truly oppressive but, with the right clothes, ie as few as possible, and the resolution to stick to the shady side of the street at all times, anything and everything is manageable. Even the subway.
Coming home from the dentist today on the subway the crowded carriage had the pleasure (!) of listening to a hustler with a unique pitch. He needed money, he “loves ladies and he loves old ladies in wheelchairs who get five times the benefits of mere ordinary folk in need.” He was happy enough for gays to get married but guess what? He “don’t like bananas or hot dogs.” He was family to everyone in that carriage, everyone’s favourite uncle, the black sheep of the family. And he had a family to feed. Coins dropped into his empty plastic tumbler, some of them mine. I prefer giving to those in need without the bother of the middle man.
It’s a Weegee summer. The one where crowds cover every grain of sand out at Coney Island and Brighton Beach. It’s the summer of The Seven Year Itch where Richard Sherman meets The Girl.
But most of all, it’s the summer which has come after the long cold winter of forever. And it is the summer where those who stay get to call the city their own.
The photos sizzles! Amazing huge crowd on the second picture. wow!
Weegee, love him or loathe him, was so good at capturing that sizzle. And all in black and white. I can’t begin to imagine that many people out on the beach at Coney Island!
I remember commuting to work from Long Island in steamy weather like you describe. Living on the west coast now, in Seattle, I’ve the opposite…gray skies and rain. Wasn’t so bad when my family moved here in ’98…but with the weather changing globally, winter has set down roots in the Pacific Northwest it seems.
but i do have awfully fond memories of NYC…thanks for reminding me… 😉
Oh my goodness, Seattle, a little like London, is so different after NYC. I do hope you have enjoyed some sunshine this summer. As much as we might complain about the heat in NY it certainly makes the winter, which was such a long one this year, more bearable.
Would love to hear some of your memories of NYC!