Lower Manhattan

It's strange to have seen lower Manhattan post-9/11 and post-Sandy.  The economic devastation is greater this time (particularly around Water Street), but the mood seems less grim than in 2001.  It might be the fact that more folks live downtown these days (due to the post-2001 incentives), so the streets are not completely deserted.  And it also helps that this is seen as a freak natural disaster, rather than a purposeful attack.  And (relatedly) that the streets are not patrolled by military folks in camouflage garb - just the NYPD, in their usual stations.

A nod to normalcy: union workers lighting
the trees in Hanover Square

Near Water Street, many familiar franchises (eg Starbucks & Au Bon Pain) have completely blocked out their plate glass windows with brown paper on the inside.  I suspect they don't want to expose potential consumers to the unsavory storm-recovery and cleanup operations.

By contrast, a mobile device retail store on Water Street did not cover its windows (after all, they don't sell food!).  This photo shows the kind of gutting that was necessary:

Retail Store, Gutted

A mail room with damaged sheetrock removed,
and dryers still running

The lights have started to come back on the east side of Water Street, but some buildings are still dark:

Meanwhile, my office building has reopened two select floors, with power supplied by a generator.  Only one elevator is in operation, and you have to be escorted up and down by a security guard.  The rest of us "refugees" from the building are squeezed into conference rooms and cubicles in other buildings across the city.  It's a whole new world.

My heart goes out to all the small businesses in lower Manhattan, especially the independently operated ones that don't have the support of a franchisor -- all those that operate, in best of times, with narrow margins.  The restaurants and bars in other NYC neighborhoods that were actually able to keep running without interruption surely made a killing; the ones in lower Manhattan and other affected areas that were able to reopen quickly with minimal damage once power was restored may be OK.  But many other places remain dark, and I worry for them.

And of course, all this is nothing compared to the places that were really hard-hit.  Many coastal areas and barrier islands in NJ (Sea Bright, Long Beach Island), as well as Staten Island and the Rockaways.