First published in The Record, Dec. 17, 2020

“New york is Dead!” No, it’s not. Snow, pandemic can’t kill NYC’s Hustle.

New York is dead, they say. Over! Look at the streets this cold December day, streets barely plowed or salted. Up Lexington Avenue, across 42nd Street and along the south side of the park, snowplows were nowhere to be seen all morning Thursday and into the afternoon. The few cars about followed each other through tall piles of brown mush. Lonely pedestrians took their precautions as they could find them. 

"It's crazy out there! I could barely walk," said Barbara Paddock, who sheathed her duck boots in spikey crampons to navigate the six-block walk from her apartment in the Murray Hill neighborhood to Grand Central Terminal. "They call New York the city that never sleeps. Now it's the city that never wakes up!"

Thirty blocks north, on Pilgrim Hill in Central Park, dozens of parents seized an opportunity that normally eludes adult New Yorkers on a busy Thursday morning: they went sledding.

“There is no way I’d be here without COVID,” said Ross Anderson, 47, an advertising executive whose office has moved for the duration of the pandemic from Park Avenue to his apartment on the Upper East Side. “I’d be in my office, having meetings.”

Pandemic + snow, meet class + hustle

So, yes. New York’s first big snowstorm of the year, combined with its first big pandemic of the century, brought the famously noisy streets of Manhattan a certain nervous quiet.

But when New Yorkers paused in the falling snow to discuss the circumstances of their lives, it seemed that little of substance had changed.

As endemic to Manhattan as busy sidewalks is the yawning chasm of class, celebrities and the rich to one side, the rest of us to the other. It was apparent Thursday that a pandemic plus a little snow will not bridge the divide. Paddock herself had braved the lonely streets for one reason only: her iPhone was broken, which meant her rich celebrity boss could not reach her.

The Apple store at Grand Central was scheduled to open at 8 a.m., according to its website. But when Paddock arrived at 8:05 she found it closed, with no Apple employees walking around inside.

“Why is it closed? My husband said it would be open! Oh, I’m gonna kill him,” Paddock said. “If the celebrity can’t reach me, I’m in deep doo-doo.”

Malou Reyes was more concerned with entertaining her rich clients than suffering their wrath. Reyes lives in the West Village, but she maintains the home of a wealthy family on the Upper East Side. Her duties include daily walks with Swagger, a 78-pound golden retriever who found the snow exciting.

“He always loves the snow,” said Reyes, 48, who knelt to shoot a video of Swagger rolling around on the ground. Then she stood up and texted the video to her boss.

“I can only stand it out here for about two hours before I get too cold. But Swagger could stay here all day,” she said. “Right buddy? Good boy!”

New York's famous hustle has so far proved pandemic-proof, and the storm fared no better. Rich Garcia arrived at the southeast corner of Times Square at 8 a.m. A sneaker store called JD Sports was scheduled to open at 9. Garcia pulled red mirrored ski goggles down over his eyes, lit a small cigar, and waited to claim his prize: one pair of Nike Air Max 95 “Neon” sneakers. Retail price: $170.

Value to future sneakerhead collectors? Incalculable.

For all the flashy words in their name, these sneakers are subtle, featuring neon green lace straps and yellow padded air cushion surrounded by a grayscale fade from white to black. The Nikes are also rare – JD Sports might have just a few dozen pairs on hand, Garcia said.

“You have to time these things right,” said Garcia. “You have to get there early.”

Garcia was third in line. As he waited, dozens of people arrived behind him. At 9 a.m. the doors opened. Garcia walked inside, made his purchase, and returned to the sidewalk minutes later, shoes tucked into his backpack.

Moshe Stizer, a fellow sneaker collector, saw Garcia standing around.

“Yo, did you get yours already?” Stizer said.

Garcia nodded.

“You sellin?” said Stizer.

“Nope,” Garcia said.

The size of the sneakers gives a sense of Garcia’s intentions. His feet are a size 10. The shoes he just purchased were 9.5's. Someday next summer, perhaps after a rain when the streets are warm and clean, Garcia will remove the padding from the shoes, he said, and go for a single walk around his neighborhood in SoHo.

Outside of that, the too-small Nike Air Max 95 Neons will sit on a shelf in Garcia’s collection, which he estimates to contain more than 500 pair.

As the snow continued to fall, Garcia was asked his plans for the rest of the day. His first stop would be the upscale clothing retailer Supreme, he said, where he planned to purchase everything he could carry. The rest of the snow day would be spent chasing down an Xbox 5.

Where might this most active collector find the season’s most coveted gift? Garcia leaned in close. He whispered very softly: “I go to Walmart.”

Gah! Tourists!

New York’s first snow of the pandemic did contain moments of fresh newness. In Central Park, Anderson’s daughter, Gemma, 11, enjoyed the rare opportunity to leave her computer.

“I have about two hours between Zoom meetings,” said Anderson, a sixth grader at East Side Middle School. “Usually, I don’t get to go outside.”

Jamie Marrero, 39, rode a jitney bus from his home in Union City to take pictures of Bryant Park covered in snow.

“It’s so nice and quiet,” said Marrero, who was laid off from his job designing store windows after the clothing retailer New York & Co. declared bankruptcy in July.

But in a city famous for tensions and stress, even the ancient war between New Yorkers and tourists remained. At 9:30 a.m., a man drove east on 42nd Street in a white Nissan SUV. His plates identified him as a visitor from Florida. With his blinkers on and all his windows down, the man held his phone outside the car and shot a video of Times Square, deserted and covered in snow.

The man from Florida was smiling. The bus driver behind him was not. Even with chains on the tires, the bus kept losing traction in the unplowed snow. Visibly angry, the bus driver let fly a long loud blast from his horn. 

The man from Florida cringed. He pulled his phone inside, and rolled his windows up. His blinkers kept blinking.