Grand Central Station a few days before Sandy hits
/ Lewis Karpel
NEW YORK CITY -- Standing on the corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Ave. in Mid-Town Manhattan Sunday evening, you’d have absolutely no idea a potentially historic storm was bearing down on New York City. While the streets did seem a bit less congested than usual, the folks we were able to chat with seemed to be going about their business as usual.
I spoke with Sandi Frinton from Poughkeepsie outside of Grand Central Terminal, to get a sense of her preparations for the soon-to-arrive storm. “Umm, I went to Jets game, I’ve done nothing to prepare, and the Dolphins won," she says.
Not exactly the epitome of chaos and fear in her voice.
Of course, NYC is well-known for its slew of street vendors. With the impending MTA shutdown of mass transit in NYC, how were vendors faring outside of Grand Central? Ehaib Ahmed told me Sandy is actually helping him out.
“People are coming from all over the city, they’re complaining that everything is closing down, there’s no food anywhere," Ahmed says. "So, the first question is, when somebody walks in, is oh, do you have any food, anything left? So it’s definitely a good turnout for me, you know?”
I even ran into someone from a land down under, Sarah Ann Wiseman from Brisbane, Australia. She was also giving off an easy-going vibe. “Yeah, just getting ready to have a few days inside, we’re trying to make it an adventure, 'cause we’re on vacation. So, we’ve bought cards and games to play," Wiseman says.
While the general feeling is calm for now, our CNYCentral crew will be down here for landfall of Hurricane Sandy late Monday, and watching out for a potentially history storm surge in low-lying areas of Manhattan.
