ABSTRACT
Rain blanketed Yorkville. Sometimes, rain or snow singles out a particular section of New York for its special blessings, or furies. Snow never lingers on Broadway, but it piles high on Avenues C and D, on the mean little streets that slink to the East River. Cold also picks its target. When the thermometer toys with zero, it’s brisk walking on Fifth Avenue, but under the Ninth Avenue “L,” or where Houston Street crosses Second Avenue, or around the gas-house district, it’s blue cold and dirty winter. Looking out of your taxi window, you know it’s raining on Park Avenue; but in Bushwick water mains burst; out near Sheepshead swimming pools form in the street and all Queens becomes marshy. The rolling clouds thunder over the city and lift their trap doors where they can bring the most disaster.
