Arrive at JFK three hours later than the time I left Auckland, so it's late Sunday. 'Hi Professor' says the taxi driver in a broad Jamaican accent. (Is there a neon sign above my head?). He apologises for the hurricane which makes petrol difficult to get he tells me. The traffic, which looks like Auckland at 8 am on any weekdaya, is therefore 'much less than normal'. Do I like cricket? he says, and when I tell him the Staten Island Cricket CLub was set up in the 1870s, he says 'I said you were a Professor'. Keen to tell me that, though he lives in Brooklyn, he supports the New York Mets not the Brooklyn Nets who, until last year were, the New Jersey Nets. Pleased that the Marathon was cancelled as it was an insult to 'the poor people of Staten Island ' who were left homeless by the hurricane. Half expecting an English style taxi driver diatribe about, vegetable eating, yoghurt drinking, sandal wearing poncey runners (see earlier blog c. 2010) I'm pleased to hear that the election is too close to call and he hopes Obama won't lose.
Arrive at the Library Hotel on 41st/Madison which appears to have noticed nothing about the hurricane, the Brooklyn Nets or the election. Good nights sleep. Any fears of me freezing/starving to death in the middle of Manhattan (you know who you are!) disappear as I sit with my iPad, eating Pringles, watching basketball (not the Brooklyn Nets) having turned the heating off because it is too hot.
In the morning, head up Manhattan to 103rd St to the City of New York Museum where, obviously having heard of my arrival, they have put on two exhibitions on the two subjects I am researching: Staten Island and the History of Activism in New York. Great Stuff. The imminent storm and freeze I was warned of seemed not to have arrived and it's a pleasant Auckland spring day (with a bit of a 'South westerly'), so I decide to walk along Fifth Avenue, along the side of Central Park, along the 'museum mile'. Soon take off my hat, gloves and scarf as I walk along in the sun admiring the green of the Park and the excesses of Fifth Avenue. Where's the hurricane? The museums are closed, but most of them are always closed on Mondays; there are a lot of service vehicles, but these are rich people who are always doing things to their houses. The people all look fairly not unhappy (in a New York way). Five days after the hurricane, I'm going to have to look elsewhere to find it.
Turn the TV on and it's obvious. It's been a tsunami and anywhere within a few blocks of a south facing waterside site is a disaster area. New Jersey, Staten Island, Atlantic City. Places it seems where poorer people live, where housing is substandard, where people have no resources of their own to manage the aftermath. In those places, it's devastating. No homes now, as well as no jobs. There is enormous sympathy, although increasing anger. Staten Island was almost overwhelmed as people, including ex-marathon runners, swarmed in to help on Sunday. A street had to be closed because there were too many people wandering around trying to give food and clothes out to people who want electricity, warmth, a house. Or to help relief centres and city officials who just want money and orderliness. Still, better compassion excess rather than the compassion fatigue that, you suspect, will soon set in. This is a city that, someone said, was prepared for a disaster if it was terrorism, but not if it was a tsunami. In 2009, the idea of a barrage (like the Thames) was considered but turned down because, at $10bn, it was thought too expensive. $20bn later.....
Later, I read that it's not just the poor. At the south end of Manhattan, many buildings along the waterfront are uninhabitable for weeks or months. It reminds you that tsunamis are not politically motivated, but the corporations and owners of gentrified residences will find a way out. The rest have a long haul. Makes you think of Christchurch.
Tomorrow I'm off to Staten Island to meet some people concerning my research and to give a lecture. The electricity came back on Saturday for most of them, and they are still looking for 'normal'. The lecture is on John De Morgan who after a brief life in England and Ireland as a notorious agitator, lived on Staten for 40 years. Other than his two Mrs De Morgans (one he married and the other he didn't) he loved Staten Island ( and fought for it be free of New York) and the idea of a just and fair people's democracy. Tomorrow night, election night, he may look like a prophet.
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