It’s been more than 680 days since Central Park was dusted by more than an inch of snow, the longest snow-free stretch in New York since snowfall records began here in 1869. It hasn’t snowed on Christmas in 14 years .
Yet if you knew where to look for it, there was snow to be found during the holidays.
It swirled down Mulberry Street inside dozens of snowballs in a gift shop window. It fluttered near Union Square, fired from a nozzle mounted on the third floor of a building. At Lincoln Center, 60 pounds of artificial snow gently rose above yet more snowflakes — well, dancers dressed as snowflakes — who waltzed on stage.
In a season so far devoid of real snow falling from the sky, New Yorkers celebrated White Christmas as they do best: their own way.
At Paragon Sports, a shop near Union Square where skis and snowboards were stacked, Zach Blank, the CEO, took matters into his own hands. Last week he had soap suds sprayed from the building onto the street.
“It’s unfortunate that it hasn’t snowed in New York City in the last year and a half,” Blank said. “Yes, it’s bubbles, but it’s really magical to see people walking by and wondering what’s going on and saying, ‘Oh, wait, is it snowing?’”
There’s snow in Ashley Hod’s apartment too. A dancer in New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” she inadvertently brings home artificial snowflakes after each performance. A shear snowstorm falls on the dancers at every performance, the gale created by a dozen people working the rafters. “It’s in my bag, in my backpack, it’s coming out of my trainers and it’s smeared all over the women’s locker room,” said Ms Hod, 28. “He always follows you.”
The wonder of the ballerinas in a blizzard has a small disadvantage: unlike real snow, paper snow never melts. “But it’s very fun and special when you see a flake in June or July,” Ms. Hod said.
In Yonkers, at Chilly Willy and Cool Carl’s Premium Ice Service, where decorative ice sleds shaped like Santa’s sleigh start at $175, the owner, Chilly Willy, aka Will D’Ariano, said he had a lot of snow, but it will cost you.
“If someone comes along with a lot of money and wants a white Christmas, they pay the price, we give them all the snow they want,” said Chilly Willy, who runs the business with his son, Chilly Willy Jr., a.k.a. . Will D’Ariano Jr. (Cool Carl retired.) “It’s never a white Christmas.”
There’s a semblance of frost in and around the city, if you really look for it: under a counter of fresh fish for sale at the Dahing Seafood Market in Chinatown, inside the Bronx warehouses of Snow Fresh Foods (“an industry leader in frozen potatoes,” according to the company) and, if you’re really imaginative, inside Dr. Marvin Snow’s dermatology offices, in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
For many, the situation was a disturbing reminder of the toll of global warming, a planet radically changed from a childhood full of snow days. And it’s not just New York. According to the National Weather Service, only about 1% of people in the contiguous United States saw a white Christmas this year.
Charlotte Robbins, 37, remembered her father taking her sledding in the Bronx, when their sledding hill was Webster Avenue itself. This year, on Christmas Eve, she was in line inside the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, NJ Big snow, an indoor ski slope. He was taking his children and granddaughter skiing for the first time.
“This generation hasn’t really experienced it, it’s a little sad,” said Ms. Robbins, who works in information technology. “I pray that people will change the way they act,” she added. “God created the earth for us. “We have to deal with it.”
On Fifth Avenue and 18th Street, Kevin Edwards played a plaintive “Let It Snow” on his saxophone on Christmas Eve. Mr. Edwards, 62, who works as a chef in the New York court system, has spent December weekends there looking for fun for the past decade, he said, even when the weather outside was frightful.
But this year, despite the 44-degree afternoon temperature, the street where he played was nearly empty — the city misses more than snow, he said. “We miss the love, we miss the peace, we miss it so much,” Edwards said before launching into his final riff: “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” He added: “I’m trying to help.”
A woman passed by applauding.
Amelia Nierenberg AND Kirsten Luce contributed to the reporting.
