Heatwave Heartache in the City That Never Sleeps

Dropping my grocery bags on the floor, I head straight for the bathroom, turn the shower to cold, and climb into the tub fully clothed, letting the freezing water wash over me. It’s early June at 10:30 am, and I had just walked from my New York City apartment on East 55th Street to Grace’s Market on East 68th Street and back, which is just under a mile. I had time to cool off while I browsed in the air-conditioned market, but the return walk back in 100+ degrees amid an air quality alert was a step too far. We’d just been released from COVID home detention in the summer of 2020, and I’d lost all common sense when it came to dealing with heatwaves.

New York City weather is epic. Biblical. It never just rains. If you’re lucky enough to have a clear view from a high-rise building, you’ll see the black scud clouds speeding toward the city with enough velocity that the first raindrops to hit the windows sound like bullets. The rain intensifies, surging off the tall buildings in drenching sheets that obliterate umbrellas and instantly flood sidewalks and subway entrances. After its fury subsides, the rain often makes way for sunshine and sometimes rainbows. It’s insane and exhilarating, much like the city itself.

But nothing is exciting about New York City heatwaves. We feel them long before they arrive. Air begins to still, and it’s hard to find a cool corner even in Central Park. Alternating dread, anxiety, and dismay, we long for a rogue snowstorm or even a tsunami. The heat builds into a brutal and relentless force in a city of too many people in a close surround of heat-seeking skyscrapers and sweltering traffic.

If you take the subway, the platforms turn into steam baths. When the heat reaches critical mass, information screens display the temperature and warnings for those with health issues. It would be wrong to overlook the overwhelming smell of urine. It’s pretty offensive on a normal day, but you get used to it. Add 100 degrees and escalating humidity and you begin to feel it seeping into your pores.

Heatwave conditions were so severe in 2017 that it was dubbed the “Summer of Hell.” Subway passengers were stranded without service, trapped in hot, dark cars, and injured in trail derailments. I’d been living in New York for 30 years, and while such incidents were not uncommon, the searing heat made them lethal. I’ve been trapped in hot cars, and trust me, you’d take a crime scene over that any day. I could take a cab to my offices downtown in the financial district, but there’s a fairly good chance that it would have none or almost no air conditioning and I’d get stuck in a metal hotbox on the FDR for the handsome sum of $35 or more. Hot and bitter is no way to start the day.

I normally consider the cab option, but the price and siren song of cold subway cars always lured me back underground. Setting off at 8:00 am, I optimistically hope for the swift arrival of a car that would be air-conditioned to a hypothermia-inducing degree. I take the 6 train, which is a bit slower than the 4, but I’m happy to enjoy the chill for as long as it takes. It’s a strategic decision. There are more stops on the 6 train, so people regularly get on and off versus the 4 where you can be trapped with a sweaty mass of humanity for far too long.

By around 6:00 pm when I’m leaving the office, the skyscrapers have had all day to generate air so hot that it visibly radiates off the sidewalks. Fulton Street Station is new enough to have circulating air. I leap into the arriving car, grateful for the cold that will help me survive when the train spits me out at 52nd and Third Avenue.

My walk home to 55th and First Avenue probably doesn’t seem long to the uninitiated, but in Manhattan, the avenues are the length of three streets. Most New Yorkers prefer not to dwell beyond Third, but rents are a fraction lower for those of us willing to hike over to Second and First Avenues. I hug the shady side of the street and do not stop for traffic. Everyone understands.

When I rented my Sutton Place apartment, its primary draw was the short stroll to the East River Promenade and its miles of riverside walkways. It was sublime to find the hint of a breeze. And while I can see the East River when I finally reach First Avenue, by a freak of geophysical nature, no air reaches the length of First Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets. Encased in an airless bubble, I am saved only by the heaven-sent wine store mid-block.

I head for the freezer and two bottles of ice-cold white wine that I tuck under each armpit. I’ve already ordered enough water to last for a month along with essential supplies in the event of a blackout. Live in the city long enough and it’s like you’ve trained as a Navy SEAL. Ready for any adverse event. Just before Hurricane Sandy, Home Depot held an event to display the best storm lighting devices. The store was packed.

Heatwave conditions are now more or less the norm after June and can hit as early as May. Anyone with means gets out of town at the end of July and returns after Labor Day. Without the necessary resources, I’m slogging through the city in August 2018 when I’m struck by a previously imaginable thought: it’s time to leave the city for good. I loved it as much as the day I arrived in 1991, which was coincidentally in a sweltering August, but I finally longed for a cooler climate. Who thought it would be the heat that brought me to my knees in the city that never sleeps?

Shortly after my Grace’s Market meltdown, I presented my Canadian passport at Toronto customs. Unlike New York City, Toronto still gets snowstorms. Certainly not the storms of my youth, but I welcome them all the same. Toronto doesn’t yet have the concentration of tall buildings needed to create major heat events, although I give it credit for genuine humidity. I was excited by my first torrential rainstorm warning, then aghast at its lackluster performance. It was just rain, coming down in straight, orderly and purposeful fashion. I’ve learned to temper my anticipation.

I have one Alexa programmed to report New York City weather alerts that bring on pangs of nostalgia, envy, and terror in equal measures. After particularly severe flash floods led to the drowning deaths of a dozen basement dwellers, the city now uses drones to fly over and warn such residents that it’s time to get out.

Debra Douglas

debrad360@gmail.com