Sunday, November 19, 2006

Timber!

I work on the Lower East Side, in the area known to some as Two Bridges (between the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges), which is basically the eastern edge of Chinatown. It's one of the less polished places in Manhattan, with a lot of warehouses selling food to Chinese restaurants and sports equipment wholesalers and the like. On Thursday I was running an errand during lunch, and, walking up Essex Street, I passed the remnants of a huge branch, maybe a foot thick, cut up and left on the curb. But when I looked around, there were no trees, certainly no trees big enough to sport this large branch. I considered it vaguely mysterious, but it's the type of neighborhood where mysterious, inexplicable things tend to appear. Now I realize it was a harbinger.

When I finished my errand I returned along East Broadway, walking next to Seward Park. As you may or may not remember, Thursday was an exceptionally windy day (and eventually rainy, too) -- it was one of those almost literally breathtaking winds. So anyway, I was walking along the border of Seward Park when I heard a cracking sound, which, of course, I ignored. Until a few seconds later, when a huge, ten-foot branch crashed to the ground behind me! It actually fell inside the park fence, but it could just have easily fallen on my side and beaned me in the head, could it not? New York is such a dangerous place! Because of the trees!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

We need more Gurgly entries.

3:00 PM  

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