One of the major privileges of living in New York for a number of years is the joy that comes from wallowing with other New Yorkers in the wizened nostalgia of how much better things were any time before right this second. And as New York moves into its 324th consecutive day without snow, making us just three days shy of breaking a 50-year-old record for the greatest length of time the city has gone unblanketed by a mushy layer of frozen water, the position of most media outlets (including this one) has been that snow is good and we like it.
But do we really?
Sure, most people who have been here longer than 324 days have sepia-toned memories of those halcyon hours in which inches of snow made transit impossible and work, therefore, legally canceled. Those pristine moments of pure white hills in Prospect Park where citizen strangers became single-serving friends passing flasks while whizzing down hills on makeshift sleds in the middle of the night as one rejoicing unit.
Or at least that’s what the pro-snow media agenda would have you remember.
What is left out of this convenient narrative are the months of slushy grey doldrums where the lingering buildup of moisture underfoot somehow defies the laws of physics to transport liquid trash through an outer layer of shoe and directly into socks, leaving millions to squelch through damp subways and sludge-gushing streets. Or the towering, ash-colored snowplow discharge lining sidewalks and filled with the sneaky poos terrible dog owners left for spring to discover.
And while it may be sensible to feel nostalgia for gentler, frozen moisture in the midst of a pelting by Wednesday's chunky rain, wishing for precipitation of any kind when there is none—and no danger of drought—is akin to wishing for the dirty water hot dogs from the carts that used to fill every corner. No lukewarm water dog nor any snow was ever as good as you want to remember, it is simply nice to have been here long enough to fondly complain.
And now for some snow-free links for your Friday:
- Colinford Mattis, a former attorney who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson after he and a friend threw a Molotov cocktail into an unmanned, already damaged police car during 2020 protests following the police murder of George Floyd, has been sentenced to a year in prison and publicly castigated by a judge. "You're not one of the oppressed," Judge Cogan told Mattis, the son of immigrants who managed to work his way into an Ivy League university despite the murder of his father. "You're one of the privileged." Mattis's friend Urooj Rahman was also sentenced to 15 months for the same crime, receiving a harsher sentence for acting as an "instigator of the attack." Both Mattis and Rahman have lost their law licenses and Mattis may lose custody of his children. Meanwhile, no word on whether the officers who drove a car into a crowd of protesters during the same time frame will lose their vacation days.
- The NYPD is being sued by the mother of a 20-year-old who was murdered by an off-duty police officer who should not have had a gun in the first place.
- Sayfullo Saipov has been convicted on 28 counts of terrorism and murder charges after killing eight people with a truck on a West Side Highway bike path. His conviction opens the door for the death penalty.
- A Brooklyn man who allegedly set a woman on fire over some missing comic books has been arraigned.
- A fire in an illegally converted basement daycare injured 18 children in Queens.
- The West Village local papers are fighting over 9/11 conspiracy theories, and Sarah Jessica Parker is involved?
- AOC misspoke while advocating for millions of migrants. Guess which of these things the headline zeroes in on.
- George Santos not only not Jewish, possibly pro-Hitler.
- The Brooklyn Bridge gets a new old park
- Mayor Adams still bullish on harassing the unhoused, bearish on "COVID cabins."
- The reviews are in for public documents surrounding New York’s $200 million cannabis social equity fund: Confusing! Surprising! Untrue!
- Andrew Cuomo is skipping his dead dad's fancy party because people are still being mean about the fact that he's (allegedly) a giant creep.
- Did your COVID divorce cause the housing shortage? It’s still a mystery!
- And lastly, this is URGENT:
