Rush Hour, Flood Hour

You know in the movies when they pan over a New York street? The avenue is packed with bumper-to-bumper taxi cabs and waves of people flow in the sidewalks as one. Well, NYC is kind of like that, but in Hollywood's way of dramatizing things, they get a little carried away.

Yet today would've been perfect for such a rush-hour scene. As I walked toward the subway, the AMNY guy handed me my morning paper with this greeted "The trains are flooded." The trains are flooded? Okay, so I can't take the 6, no big deal. "What about the N/R?" I asked him. Nope, he shook his head. So as I started making my way north on 4th Avenue, I began to realize the more densely crowded sidewalks, the groans of my fellow pedestrians became more and more apparent as I made my way from 8th to 28th.

It wasn't a bad walk for me. In fact, I always enjoy a good walk. However, New Yorkers aren't much into walking, especially in the muggy, sticky conditions the post-storm morning held. Cabs were impossible to get, because if you weren't south of 14th steet, they had already been taken. Buses were bursting with passengers, and didn't even bother to try to make regular stops where dozens - if not hundreds - of subway-turned-bus riders watched with envy as another full bus made its way past them.

In many ways, my New York experience has been unique. The steam blast earlier this summer was a pseudo-9/11 experience for many in the City, and now there's talk of the 2003 blackout as packs of pedestrians fill the streets of Manhattan.

For a city that manages so much crisis, New York certainly has given me tools for survival in 'the real world.' And, oh yeah, I'm doing an internship here, too...