We had torrential rain yesterday and last night with winds up to 40 mph. It was quite exciting and frightening. I was really glad I had a few trees cut down last week! This morning it's gray and still and wet but kind of beautiful anyway.
New York was an amalgam of experiences. We drove down the West Side and there was very little traffic from the GW Bridge all the way to Canal Street. I met my colleague in SoHo and drove through Chinatown. We miss the food and the culture and the shopping! There's a seafood market on Canal that we've often gone to in the past but it's gates were shuttered.
Then we drove up the East Side to check on our apartment and go to my office. The parking rules have been relaxed and I've never seen so many cars parked on the streets. As I was taking care of my business, the Landlady(!) was calling our favorite Chinese and Japanese restaurants to see if we could order take out. 4 out of 5 were closed. I fear for the restaurant business in our country. It's a marginal-profit business in many cases and their recovery will be difficult.
Driving through the city, there weren't too many people on the sidewalks and almost everyone was wearing a face-covering of some sort. As with our drive downtown, the ride up Third Avenue was an easy 15 minutes and we hit only two traffic lights from Houston Street to 97th Street, (about 7.5 miles). We both miss New York.
In the mountains where we are, there are a number of good restaurants, many of which are closed now. We've often speculated if a Chinese/Japanese restaurant would work up here. Since the area is a weekend destination for many, it seemed like a viable idea until COVID-19 changed everything. Other than Italian, there isn't a lot of international cuisine in this area. Many restaurants offer game meats on their menus such as venison, rabbit and bison (not really a game meat, I guess).
= new reply since forum marked as read
