100 degrees isn't the same everywhere
Don't mock the East Coast heat wave: Summer in the city sucks
110 in the shade? Blame the Urban Heat Islands.
The best heat relief on the streets of NYC? Fire hydrants spraying water.Photo by Kathy Willens
I've lived all but two summers of my life in Texas, and each brings its own special misery. I remember hanging out in Fort Worth when the mercury hit 109, feeling like the breeze was a hair dryer blowing in my face. I've sighed as the Houston humidity fogged up my sunglasses upon exiting my car. I've learned that if my hair is in pigtails on a hot summer day in Austin, it is capable to get a sunburn on the scalp where my hair parts.
But I can say with no hesitation that the most uncomfortably hot summer of my life was in New York City. And that was without a triple-digit heat wave, like the one set over the East Coast this week.
From the first week in my Harlem sublet, without the benefit of air conditioning the heat just seemed to hover oppressively. Fans and open windows had no effect; the only relief to be found was in opening the freezer and eating gelato by the pint.
Outside the apartment things only got worse. Houston humidity has earned its fearsome reputation, but that doesn't mean we have a monopoly on it, and Manhattan is, after all, an island surrounded by water. Sweat rolls off you, especially in the midday hours when the sun directly overhead bounces off every reflective building surface, multiplying, and shade is impossible to find.
Heading into the subways gets one out of the sun, but the air is hot and stale and only moves when a train comes whooshing in, bringing a gust of wind that would be refreshing if it didn't feel so dirty.
The worst thing about New York City is all the ways Texans beat the heat are unavailable. Hitting the beach means an hour-plus commute to Coney Island or Jones Beach, two hours if you plan to hit the esteemed shores of the Hamptons. City pools are virtually nonexistent, and in a city of eight million, you won't be the only one (unsuccessfully) trying to scam your way into the Hotel Gansevoort's rooftop spread.
Soho House? Even the Sex and the City girls got kicked out.
Air conditioning must be hunted. For the broke that means movies, museums (especially at the Met, where the ticket price is only a suggestion), churches and the occasional grocery store. On days without triple-digit temps, heading to Central Park to escape the urban heat island effect is doable, but the better tree cover is at the tippy-top of Manhattan at The Cloisters — the Met's medieval monastery museum made up of the remnants of five French monasteries built between the 12th and 15th centuries — and its Fort Tyron Park environs.
But before I figured out how to navigate the sweaty cesspool that is Manhattan in the summer — and before I moved to an apartment with facing windows for optimal ventilation — I only realized how bad it was when my neck began to itch. After two days, I queried my roommate what it might be. "Oohhhh... that's a heat rash," she said.
Yes, I was living in one of the most metropolitan cities in the world, and I ended up with an ailment I thought was limited to infants and third world residents. The northeast summers may be shorter and relatively sweeter, but I'll take the a/c-laden, pool-ready heat in Houston any day.
