SNOWBOUND

A Blizzard

SNOWBOUND

Photo Credit: Alfred Stieglitz

I’ve always loved cityscapes in the snow. A favorite photographer Alfred Stieglitz captured the blizzard of 22 February 1893 in a photograph titled Winter Fifth Avenue featuring a horse drawn carriage. He spent three hours standing on the avenue waiting for lighting and composition in the fierce inclement blizzard.

I titled this Artist’s Date Flatiron Building

One wonderful experience I had was in 1996, more than a century after Stieglitz shot his famous photograph, when I was selling at 26th Street Flea Market and staying in a cold water flat with my artist friends Kathy and Alastair on 19th between Park and Broadway near Gramercy Park. Very early Sunday morning we went into the parking garage where we were set up with our antiques and collectibles, there was no snow on the ground. At 2:00 they had to close the market, the New Jersey Turnpike was closed.

This one is called Varykino 2010

I loaded my Toyota pickup with my inventory tied it down and proceeded to drive carefully down the ramp onto 26th into about eight inches of snow turned left and left again and went up another ramp to a higher floor of the parking garage to park, Alastair and Kathy parked their van there also. The three of us trudged through the calf high snow with huge flakes of snow covering our faces and clothes. We traversed up 26th street to Fifth Avenue and Broadway towards 19th street past Madison Square Park and across 23rd Street and the Flatiron building. We hunkered down in the apartment with dinner and a movie. The next day greeted us with a total of twenty-four inches of the fluffy white stuff.

Blizzard of 2010 Mr2 blanketed with powder

Kathy worked eleven blocks up Park Avenue for a doctor as a receptionist. Alastair and I took turns pulling her on an antique Flexible Flyer Sled. There were no trucks, cars, cabs or buses. Traffic was completely shut down. Later when Kathy got off work early we walked with the sled up and down streets and through Union Square from Gramercy through SoHo to Tribecca. It was glorious. My only regret was not having a camera.

Blizzard of 2010 Fox Hall

Note: The anticipation of our second snow event of the season and my friend Carol texting me about enjoying From Beyond Bloomsbury “Winter Wonderland: Let It Snow!” -- a series of winter landscapes, early 20th century, and how she was particularly struck by how the painters captured the color of the winter sky, prompted this post. The photos here are examples of snow days through the years since the blizzard of 1996.

My view from The Treehouse my little friends.