You remember summer, right?
About the only thing that every NYC summer has in common with all the other NYC summers is that it’s too damned hot and people are cranky jerks.
What set this past one apart? Besides everyone being crankier than ever?
It was the thumbs, wasn’t it? Yeah, this is the first summer we’ve had a barrel of thumbs out by the 2/3 train in Harlem.
Worked well in deterring the tourists.
Tourists should stick to the parts of the city they know from TV and the movies. They should blow lots of money, walk four abreast only in Times Square, and then go back to Ohiowa to impress their friends with those cool I Heart NY t-shirts (made in China…Jesus, we’d better not go to war over there, too!).
One significant difference between this summer and the last two was the bizarre belief held by a solid two-thirds of the city that the pesky pandemic crap was happily behind us. No more masks and no more eating out in those traffic nightmare sheds. Leave 'em to the rats!
To celebrate, everyone — we’re talking roughly 6,000,000 New Yorkers who really should have known better — who got a dog during the pandemic felt entitled to bring Dimples everywhere. I’m talking everywhere. What used to be an occasional sighting in Dean and Deluca has morphed into a constant presence everywhere.
Not Dean and Deluca however. They packed it in early in the pandemic while assuring anyone who cares that they’d be resuming operations after their Chapter 11 reorganization is completed. Save it, boys, anyone who used to shop at your place now has their heirloom tomatoes and caviar delivered by one of the thousands of Los Deliveristas tearing up the streets on their electric bikes.
Like Burning Man art living on top of a building in Chelsea. Now you don't have to actually go to That Thing in the Desert because the art comes to New York as does everything and everyone else.
So to sum up how this summer was different from other New York City summers?
Judging by the photos and my already dimming memory....it wasn't. But the day is coming when it will have people shaking their heads and mumbling classic lines about how those were the days. Which begs the question.
If these are the days...what are we doing with them?
In about three blinks of an eye, the winter will descend. Autumn will be something to remember fondly and share about on Instagram. Hey, wasn't it great singing along with everyone in Strawberry Fields in early October to celebrate John Lennon's birthday?
So hold on. Savor the fading light and the few leaves left hanging valiantly from branches. Think about the warmth of summer to ward off the coming frozen darkness.
Does anyone feel nostalgia for the winter?
Do you?
Comments / 0