Where is New York At – Pt. 3

Snowing today – second day in a row – big flakes twirling down from the grey, making the trees, the brownstones of Brooklyn look pretty . . .making everything look pretty. 

Lot of anticipation in the air with the inauguration tomorrow. Everyone’s talking about it, trying to decide where to see it. Two million people are descending on Washington, I don’t know how many on Chicago. The Jumbotron at Times Square will be showing the inauguration ceremonies, Obama’s speech, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and I think the Apollo in Harlem will do the same, along with countless bars across the city. 

Here in Bed-Stuy all is quiet, and it feels like just another night. Same shuttered stores along Bedord, Nostrand Avenues. The sound of snow shovels scraping cement as people clear the snow off their stoops. In this quarter at least, you wouldn’t know it was any other day. 

Barack Obama has called for people to volunteer for this Martin Luther King day as part of setting off a new era in America and to this end there were volunteers of all kinds posted around Brooklyn, soliciting donations, books, whatever, for whatever causes, their leaflets spread out on fold-out tables getting covered in snow. The President-elect has gotten into the spirit himself by visiting a homeless shelter for teens. Among the other things you can learn on this video: the President -elect is a housepainter. Rumour had it that house-painting was his first job. As a sometime housepainter myself, this warms my heart – you can only go up.