Living Dangerously

Images, c/w: mud covered windows, 42nd Street closed to traffic, site of the explosion with towstruck still in the hole and broken windows on the building across the site.

After five years of living in the city it feels like
I’ve become what they call the seasoned New Yorker. Admittedly, I am slightly paranoid, slightly oblivious to the familiar and the trivial, constantly in a hyper state of mode and almost always immune to the wackiness that is customary of the daily life in the city.

Some years ago, New York City was famous for its notoriety and it took a long time before Manhattan to get cleaned up of homeless vagabonds and reach a level when criminality is at its lowest. These days, very few areas of the metropolitan can be considered ‘unsafe’ any time of the day.

Just when you thought it is safe to go back out there however, comes new dangers that lurk everywhere. Grates that line the sidewalks that can catch your stiletto heel and cause you to fall and break your nose (really happened to someone I know!). These same grates fatally electrocuted a dog in Chelsea and a woman in the East Village early this year. ConEd has admitted that there are more than 1,000 stray voltage sites in the city. In May, a woman in midtown survived a fall when the grate gave in after she stepped on it. And then what about A/C units falling from high-rise buildings? Terrorism? Mentally deranged people randomly pushing people off the subway platform and onto the path of an incoming train? Too much partying?

The antiquated infrastructure of the city is starting to give way and there are warnigs. Last year Astoria, Queens suffered several days of power outage at the height of a heatwave after manhole fires. This week, ConEd claims that condensation have caused the steam to build up and thus explode in a geyser cocktail of mud, steam, water, asphalt and asbestos in midtown at the height of rush hour. This was a block away from my building. The tow trcuk driver that was trapped in the midst of the accident suffered 80% burns on his body and as of this time is still in a medically induced coma. A 51 year old woman running away from the scene in panic suffered from a heart attack and did not make it to the hospital. In all, the city reports that there were about 20 people rushed to hospital because of the incident.

So now when I walk out of my apartment in the morning, I just hope that I would make it back in one piece later. In New York, you just never know what is waiting out there.