The View From E 88th

Stepping outside my front door this morning, coffee in hand, ankle length winter coat for lack of a bathrobe, onto the catwalk: our street is eerily calm. It's cold, and there's a carpet of wet, yellow leaves on the ground. The three trees in front of my building thankfully withstood the storm, as did a carelessly parked Harley across the street. In fact, but for the news, loudly insinuating itself from my neighbor's apartment, one looking out on this street might think she had merely awoken to an average Manhattan morning still wet with the results of an average October rain. But there's no sound of traffic coming up the hill from Second, and no march of morning umbrellas torwards the 6 train on Lex and down on 14th, at Avenue C the cars' roofs are like islands in an inland sea.