Candlelight Burritos

Upstate New York, October 2012. As my final class of the week ended, all I could think about was getting down to the city to witness Hurricane Sandy. Hurricanes thrive in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, warm waters help brew these tropical storms and as they reach land their strength minimizes and they eventually extinguish. In an improbable manner, Sandy climbed up along the east coast and managed to stay intact as it approached the North East, posing a real threat to New York City. Severe winds, floods and all the usual meteorological effects were expected. Despite the danger and uncertainty posed by the storm, my friends and I were infinitely curious about the fate that awaited the big apple and decided to go against any suggestions to stay at home or avoid certain areas. The thought of the most important and functional city in the world suddenly being in such a vulnerable state was intriguing. Selfishly, we were amused by the notion of a dystopian Gotham post-Sandy. Post 9/11, NYC became subject to extreme measures of security, control and surveillance. Most of my close friends at the time grew up below Canal Street and were directly affected or temporarily displaced by the September 11th attacks. Trespassing into private and public property, and different forms of vandalism were frequent sources of amusement. We were responding to the securitization and aggressive redevelopment of lower Manhattan. It was our notion of leisure in this time and place. There was a collective subversive attitude which explains why we had this morbid fantasy of experiencing the city in such an unpredictable state. Ultimately, the city was well equipped to deal with the terrorist threat but ironically ill-equipped to deal with natural disasters; surprising due to the geography of the 5 boroughs and their proximity to the sea.

We met up in Tribeca on Monday October 29th the day the storm was expected to arrive and convinced a friend to take their father’s car without permission across the Brooklyn Bridge in an attempt to reach Coney Island. We got stopped somewhere along the way by a traffic cop who we saw struggling and almost get blown away like a tumbleweed. Through the rainy window, droplets fragmented all the scenes taking place outside, and the extreme weather had a disorienting effect where all of our surroundings were barely recognizable.

It was time to head back to our friend’s place on Warren Street whose father’s car we used for the expedition. Shortly after all the power went out and everything went dark; there had been an explosion at the Con Edison Plant on east 14th which provided electricity to all of lower Manhattan. The blackout had commenced and downtown plunged into darkness. As we went outside again, we decided to head towards the West Side Highway which had become an extension of the Hudson River. As the water reached my knees I decided to turn back. The streets had never been so desolate. They became infinite voids; we were living under an omnipresent shadow and the night had never been so menacing. Very rarely there was the occasional apartment scarcely lit by candlelight. The next day I witnessed an exodus of people escaping downtown for areas which still had power above midtown. As I walked down Church Street to meet some friends we saw a Chinese-run Mexican restaurant, the only fast-food restaurant that was somehow open. We ate burritos cooked with candlelight, the end.

Cy Schnabel