120 blocks or so ...

There are times, like today, when I’m not so in love with New York City.

Apparently torrential rain and violent wind fell upon the city before dawn – I slept through it – but it was bad enough to bring it to a complete stand still. Of course, it had to happen the day I had to be in the office for 8.30am for a very important all day meeting when I had to present to a bunch of eager and overly smart Senior VPs.

I absentmindedly heard something on the radio, when I was getting ready, about the subway being a “little” disrupted but thought that setting off at 7.15am would leave me plenty of time to get to work (at the other end of Manhattan) for 8am.

I took the short walk to the subway outside my building, Ipod firmly in place with uplifting music on, only to find that my subway station was closed. I walked to the next stop (79th- I live on 86th-) and it was closed too. I thought that maybe the A or the C (I normally take the 1 & 2/3) were still running and walked across to the Natural History Museum, a couple of avenues west… where I managed to get on a train that stopped at 72nd and refused to go any further.
I walked to Columbus Circle (57th) but soon realised that there was absolutely no subway trains going downtown at all, anywhere in the city …

I started to walk down 7th avenue, along with hundreds of other people, and it was weird knowing that there was nothing we could do but just walk and sometimes hold our arm out (to no avail) when a taxi came into view. We all live in one of the most sophisticated cities in the world and yet we were all stranded and helpless. All the taxis were taken and all the buses were crammed. There was no way to get anywhere in the city, regardless of status, gender or age … Manhattan never felt so big.

I walked for many blocks hoping that I would chance upon an empty cab… until I finally reached Greenwich village when I realised that I was so far down that there was no other option but to walk all the way to work to the World Financial Centre.

What I haven’t mentioned is that today was one of the hottest (35C) and most humid day of the year. In the end, I walked about 120 blocks, which took around 3 hours, drenched in sweat (not an attractive sight, but then everyone else was the same), before I made it to the office in time for my presentation at 11am. By that time, I was too exhausted to even remember my name, let alone explain “Steph’s Grand Plan” as it has become known …

To add insult to injury, I had been to the gym the night before and ran 5 miles on the treadnmill, so a 7 miles walk in tropical weather and kitten heels was not what I needed …