National Hurricane Service’s map of what’s now (on Sunday) Tropical Storm Irene
New York’s cultural institutions, like the rest of us, hunkered down for Hurricane Irene this weekend. Abbie Fentress Swanson, interactive content producer of WNYC (New York’s public radio station), had the most comprehensive rundown
I’ve seen of the various cultural closures and cancelations that were announced in the New York area, in anticipation of the hurricane:
Theatrical and musical performances were largely canceled, museums
prudently closed, both yesterday and today. We’ve yet to hear, though, about how art museums and their contents made
out during the heavy rains, high winds and power outages.
I did manage on pre-hurricane Friday to get to synagogue to say Kaddish for my father on the first anniversary of his passing. As I lit the memorial candle in my home that night, it occurred to me that this flame might wind up doing double-duty as a light source in a power outage.
An earthquake and a hurricane in one week…What’s next?
Later Friday night, I joined CultureSon and his wife for dinner in Manhattan, where the bar and restaurant scenes were hopping with young people striving to cram a whole weekend’s worth of socializing into hurricane eve.
At this writing, from the other side of the Hudson, the rains have completely stopped but the winds are still kicking up. The worst of it, in my part of New Jersey (high on the Palisades, just across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan), hit at around 3 a.m. this morning, when I was awakened by the sound of truly ferocious and frightening gales.
How did CultureGrrl fare in a windswept apartment? Here’s how: