NYC got its largest snowfall in four years, so I headed out with my camera to capture it.
My plan was to take the subway from my apartment in Yorkville to Times Square, then walk home, possibly through Central Park. How successful I was in that plan would largely depend on how I dealt with the cold. I knew, from my trip to Iceland, that I could handle the cold well in all areas other than my fingers, which are the most important part to keep warm while trying to operate a camera. After my numb finger experience in Iceland, I decided to try wearing larger photography gloves on top of medium thick regular gloves.
Normally, NYC gets fluffy, wet snow, but because of the very cold temperature, it was more like frozen snow, almost hail. None of it stuck to me at all. By the time I got home, the only thing that was wet was my boots. Everything that collected snow (parka hood, camera bag, etc.) was easily brushed off.
When I hit Times Square, about 9:15am, it was the main part of the storm. The snow was coming down pretty heavily, and the clouds were so thick that you could barely tell it was the middle of the morning…it looked like it was dusk.
Times Square, and the large midtown office building’s in the 40s and 50s, have some serious snow removal tools. They were using one-man riding snow blowers, power brushes, and front loaders, and just continuously going back and forth as the snow fell. Smaller buildings or even stores that were trying to keep their doors snow-free were using snow shovels, squeegees, and even brooms.
When I walked up to 57th and 6th, I had sort of decided that I thought it would be interesting to walk up in a more residential area than the park, so I headed East.
By the time I had gotten to 79th and 3rd, some 3 hours after heading out, I realized that my toes were starting to hurt, not so much from the cold, but more from having to walk through the snow in a way that was different than normal walking. In fact, two of my toes felt strained for days afterwards.
The good news is that my fingers didn’t get too cold, so my experimental “double glove” technique worked!
