Mayor Quimby would never miss an opportunity like that
But then he got a whole bunch of shit about resuming school today. Most of the schools if not all of the schools in my area were closed both Monday and Tuesday because it was just not possible to clear all the snow. Worse in NYC because there are fewer places to get rid of it.
Locally, if the superintendent keeps school open when there’s snow, she catches a ton of shit, whereas if she instead closes school when there’s snow, she catches a ton of shit. Everyone’s an amateur meteorologist and knows better than anyone else whether school should be open or shut. I tend to side with the “err on the side of closure,” because a bunch of unnecessarily inconvenience parents and businesses is less bad than a few nasty accidents; but I can understand both sides and am really on the side of “give grace to the people making the call and be glad I’m not making that call myself.”
I’m not quite sure about the law or regulation in NYC but apparently it’s the mayor’s call with consultation from the school superintendent. Anywhere I’ve lived the board of education was independent and made those calls. The criticism I’ve seen is mostly not taking the option of having remote classes but that comes with its own issues. I too am on the side of erring on the side of closure especially since this was one of the worst storms in the area on record. It was a bad one. I had a couple of trees go down. Luckily they landed in the road and not on the house. Two feet of snow. 3 plus feet drifts. But this is the suburbs where there is room to push the snow. The logistics of snow removal in NYC is pretty impressive but it takes time.
I lived in NYC for 40 years and they hardly ever close schools for weather, once the blizzard move out and the snowfall stops falling, schools will open. I might be misremembering but I think there was a time when they went 10 years or so without a weather closure.
The mass transit system is pretty rugged, and you don’t have lots of older students that drive to school, which is one reason suburban schools close at the first snowflake.
NYC politics are drastically different from national politics and it used to crack me up how National news outlets, particularly the right wing ones, keep trying to stuff them into the national R vs D. mold.
As an example, most of the liberal’s in the city that I know actually kind of like Sliwa. They wouldn’t vote for and don’t agree with his policy ideas, but they acknowledge that he’s a real New Yorker that cares deeply about his city….plus he’s amusing. They’re like “let’s make room for him in the tent so he can piss outside it”.
Fox News can dissect and bash everything Mandami does and it doesn’t really matter because no one in NYC pays any attention or lends any weight to their opinion……it’s all just fodder to outrage the red staters.
The police walked into the middle of a snowball fight in Washington Square Park following 911 calls, and things escalated in an expected manner:
Mamdani expressed the view that it did not warrant criminal charges:
The Police Benevolent Association union disagreed:
I have no objective information on how serious it really was. However, the response of the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association has drawn a lot of criticism for being, well, whiny and stupid:
Or it could be sandwiches, or pillows, or mean words that hurt Vince’s fee-fees. The thing about snowy days is that they create a lot of slippery slopes.
As you know NYC tends to have less snow than the surrounding area. Prevailing weather patterns usually have heavier snow to the north and west. I also seem to remember the city being hotter has something to do with it. This one was not a usual storm. And it comes on the heels of the last unusual storm which was bad because it wasn’t as much snow but it was a lot of ice. I had to drive out of the city during the middle of that one.