This Week on the Stoop

It’s been an incredibly difficult week for New York City. We appreciate how lucky we were in Park Slope, and are continuing to work on helping, and wishing the best for, our neighbors who were not so fortunate.

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Here’s how the week unfolded:

The MTA shut down public transit in advance of Hurricane Sandy, and now, a week later, we’re nearly restored, but not quite.

One by one, everything else began to shut down, from schools and libraries to local businesses.

Early Monday morning, the storm began to impact the area.

By Monday afternoon, the Gowanus was overflowing and large trees were falling, and every kind of transportation was at a stand-still.

Later in the day, more damage was apparent, and getting worse.

But the damage was nothing compared to the loss of a young man from Park Slope named Jacob Vogelman, who was killed during the storm with his friend Jessie Streich-Kest in Ditmas Park.

Immediately after the storm came through, we began to see some of the overnight damage, and then even more, and then the call for volunteers began.

With two evacuation shelters in Park Slope, neighbors came out to help in big numbers.

The annual Halloween Parade was cancelled, but families found a way to celebrate even so.

By Wednesday, public school had been cancelled for the entire week.

Prospect Park lost over 300 trees in the storm, but by the time it reopened on Saturday, it held its scheduled Walk-a-Thon anyway as a way to raise funds to restore the park.

Much of 4th Avenue became a waiting line for gas, which was in high demand but short supply.

Controversy swirled around the Mayor’s decision to keep the NYC Marathon scheduled, until it was cancelled on Friday afternoon.

Despite long lines and bare shelves, things are slowly returning to normal at the Park Slope Food Coop.

As we deal with the impact of the storm, we figure out how we’ll vote on Election Day.

Finally, please remember that our neighbors in Red Hook can still use help, as can our neighbors elsewhere in the city.

Photo of fallen tree in Prospect Park by jenniferhelm