Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

So I had this well-intentioned plan to post just about every photo that people sent in today.

Posted a few of the 79th Street Boat Basin this afternoon and then… became officially overwhelmed.

Between trying to keep track of what was open in neighborhood while responding to hundreds of e-mails, comments, and tweets, organizing photos just became too much.

I don’t even know how many pictures people actually sent in — I stopped keeping track when I got to 400. Please know that I saw each and every one of them — even if I didn’t post them, I’m very appreciative that you took the time to share them.

After a while, all of the various downed trees and smashed cars on the UWS started to look the same. As I tweeted and posted earlier, I feel very lucky to be in a neighborhood that, relatively speaking, was completely unscathed.

Mangled scaffolding, jacked-up trees, and the occasional wrecked car aside, the damage pales in comparison to the devastation throughout coastal sections of the Tri-State area, where people’s homes were destroyed by fire, flooding, or felled trees. That’s to say nothing of the millions of people sitting in the dark right now, or storm’s rising death toll.

The worst thing in my life right now is that subways aren’t running — a problem I’m sure many people would happily take in exchange for theirs.

For what it’s worth, if you missed the post earlier there are three evacuation shelters on the Upper West Side that are looking for volunteers.

It feels kind of trivial to post photos at this point, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t include any. So that said, here are just a few sights from around the neighborhood today:

The photo above was taken by MUW reader Jeff on West 92nd, between Central Park West & Columbus. Thankfully no one was in the car when the windshield was impaled — it looks like something out of a horror flick. I believe CBS-NY was using b-roll of this scene throughout the day when discussing damage on the UWS.

Priscilla sent in this shot of the kayak launch in Riverside Park at 72nd. Keep in mind that she snapped this in the morning, after much of the storm surge had receded. Gives you an idea of how high the water got. Parts of the West Side Highway were completely submerged during the surge’s peak.

Amanda sent in this photo of Pier I, just two blocks south of the kayak launch above. I posted a photo last night showing the pier was almost submerged — the photo below shows debris on top of the pier, so it may have been fully submerged at some point overnight.

Here’s another one from Amanda, showing vehicular traffic on the 66th Street Transverse being replaced by people. Amanda has a Flickr gallery up with 151 photos from around the UWS.

@Jodi_Kendall snapped this mangled scaffolding at Broadway & 72nd. There were scenes like this all over the neighborhood and NYC, with pieces of wood and metal flying around like missiles during the height of the storm last night. Amazing that no one was killed by flying debris.

Another familiar scene throughout the neighborhood today, this one captured by MUW reader Ben J. on West 90th, between Columbus & Central Park West. Numerous streets in the neighborhood were closed due to massive downed trees lying across them — ripped from their roots like it was nothing.

Finally, MUW reader Ben E. snapped this photo of a rainbow while jogging on Riverside Drive at 97th this morning. I received a bunch of photos from people showing this rainbow over the Hudson (around 11:35 am), but this was one of the clearest. I found it oddly uplifting, a contrast to the stark reality of Sandy’s devastation that had been revealed by daylight only hours earlier.

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Tags: Sandy