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African Skies over Manhattan

Aug 19, 2009 by Ted Botha Leave a Comment

Few things surprise me in N.Y. Maybe the guy in the subway last week who, unlike the normal beggars, claimed to have been tortured by the CIA. But last night a thunderstorm hit upper Manhattan that devastated half of Central Park. Dozens, maybe scores, of trees six- and seven-stories high were lying across the road. Cyclists and runners on their morning ritual were standing next to these 100-year-old giants just gaping. This isn’t the kind of thing that happens in New York. New York is orderly (except for the odd shooting, robbery, mugging and siren every five minutes). Roads were closed off, park employees were scrambling to cut up the trees and clean up the branches. I thought of Africa, then, and how this kind of thing happens all the time. Nice to see Mother Nature hasn’t forgotten Manhattan.

Filed Under: New York Blog Tagged With: central park, manhattan, storms

About Ted

Ted was born in New York and grew up in Japan, South Africa, and Washington, D.C. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, and Outside. His books include Apartheid in my Rucksack, a personal account of discovering Africa as a white African; Mongo, Adventures in Trash, where he follows the people in New York City who collect what others consider garbage; and, with Jenni Baxter, The Expat Confessions, about South Africans abroad. His latest book, a nonfiction thriller about a forensic sculptor titled The Girl with the Crooked Nose, comes out in January 2012. His novel, The Animal Lover, is on Kindle. He is a swimmer and a runner, and has done his share of triathlons as well as long-distance swims in South Africa and New York’s Hudson River.

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