"The traumatic experience of surviving superstorm Sandy has provided some high-school seniors inspiration for their college-application essays, a task that in the best of times is already stressful."
"Seeing lower Manhattan without power was a surreal experience. This is traditionally a city that never sleeps. One in which the lights are always on. One that is always bustling with people. When the lights went out it was wholly different. This piece is meant to capture and relay the feeling of what it was like to walk around the darkened streets of lower Manhattan." [Via]
"A tightening of the waistband hardly counts as a crisis in a region where so many have endured actual devastation…. Still, the extra pounds provided evidence of a disaster-psychology mind-set that took hold during Sandy: in times of crisis, New Yorkers discovered, food fills an emotional need, not just a physical one." —Next time, there will be people eating people. Seems reasonable.
Blue = volunteer locations, green = dropoff locations.
Here's a pretty good summary of volunteer locations for today in and around New York City. From there and other sources, here's where to go.
GOWANUS Volunteers and donations are needed for the Gowanus Houses. Info and schedule here; volunteer sign-up form here.
RED HOOK Report to 402 Van Brunt starting at 10 a.m.
STATEN ISLAND Report to Christian Pentecostal Church, 900 Richmond Rd, corner of Ralph Pl, starting at 9 a.m.
ROCKAWAYS Cars and drivers needed and, it is stressed, people to do labor. Donations report to 443 Beach 54th starting at 8:30 a.m.
EVERYWHERE Report [...]
Chris Christie's sudden respect for Barack Obama has enraged conservatives and the Romney campaign, but it makes sense when you remember that Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen more than anything, and a disaster just hit New Jersey, and Springsteen will obviously do a benefit. But Springsteen, who is such a Famous Democrat that he actually campaigns with Obama, refuses to have anything to do with Christie. What might change Bruce's feelings for the Republican governor of New Jersey? What might make The Boss finally give a little love back to his biggest (!) fan, Chris Christie?
This should do it:
Springsteen To Perform At Sandy Benefit [...]
"Oh, it's terrible in Manhattan, we can only imagine how awful it must be in Brooklyn," Manhattan people were emailing the night of the storm, before they couldn't really email any more. Yes: most of Brooklyn lost cable TV for about six hours. There were some twigs about on the broad sidewalks too. Although, the DVRs still played! So most Brooklynites didn't notice much of a thing, outside of the devastation of Red Hook and some more localized disasters, except when Brooklyn was blinded by the Ghostbusters-like shooting lights of Manhattan's power transformers exploding.
Now lots of downtown Manhattan hold-outs turned have-nots are refugees in Brooklyn—except for the likes of [...]
The reason that people make so much out of the rising of the Gowanus canal in Brooklyn is that 1. it is a cesspool of horror and 2. its banks are the most prime site for development in all of Brooklyn: miles of ancient warehouses, trash yards, parking lots and storage, just waiting to be luxury condos. Luxury condos… that will fill up with poop and cadmium every time there's a storm surge. Here's what happened last night, when high tide came. The canal overflooded so much that it drowned the bridges, and the entire block surrounding, turning Bond Street into a river, and beginning to march up to [...]
