Early Monday Morning in Bay Ridge: Watching Hurricane Sandy at Shore Road Park

At 7:30 a.m., With New York City shut down, we walked a few blocks from our new Bay Ridge sublet to Shore Road Park

to see what Hurricane Sandy looked like so far.

Since New Yorkers were warned to stay out of parks, this was either daring or foolish, as attested to by branches that had fallen.

Luckily none fell on our head.

Back on the safety of Fourth Avenue, we saw this poster for the young challenger to the incumbent Republican congressman. Democrat Mark Murphy is the son of John M. (Jack) Murphy, our old congressman from the 1960s, whom we used to write frequently during our years as an annoying teenager.

Back on Third and Fourth Avenues, the 24-hour Walgreens was still open, as were most of the mom-and-pop (mostly Bangladeshi) newsstands/delis (which have replaced the candy stores/ luncheonettes of our Brooklyn youth in the 50s and 60s) and the (very Greek) Athens Market.

Yesterday afternoon, after we braved the lines for food, water and supplies at Foodtown,

it seemed like everything was shutting down: the Starbucks on Third Avenue at 92nd Street;

Century 21 on the 86th Street shopping district, where the Christmas decorations already are up;

and of course the subway system, shown by this sign that went up in mid-afternoon yesterday at the R train terminus at 95th Street station entrance.

This morning we stopped in every place that was open except the laundromat and a tailor shop because we felt we needed to buy something.

Our umbrella never got opened because of the wind, but we had on a down parka with a hood (over just a Brooklyn College T-shirt). By the end of our hour's walk, the winds had picked up a lot from when we started out; it was definitely noticeable. At some crossings, the water was already making puddles. These sandbags were trying to stop a store's basement from being flooded.

It's a pretty anxious day in New York, but at the early hour, looking out over the Narrows to Staten Island, with light traffic still moving on the Belt Parkway and the Verrazano Bridge, it seemed quite peaceful and beautiful.