New York is burning

So why don't I feel more sad?

Last Friday, after I had already scheduled the newsletter, we were walking back from Williamsburg after a concert when I saw I had missed a text from a friend: “Prospect Park is on fire!” Now she mentioned it, I could smell campfire in the air. Perhaps this could explain why my eyes tickled and my throat scratched. “Forest fires in New York City are nearly unprecedented.” Two acres burned before the fire was extinguished.

A 4-acre brush fire also broke out in Inwood Hill Park, at the northern end of Manhattan.

In fact, between October 29 and November 12, the fire department has responded to 229 brush fires across the five boroughs, the highest number in a two-week period in New York City history. “This, compared to just 200 in the entire month of October for the last three years.”

Hundreds of fires have also started in New Jersey, amid drought conditions and unseasonably warm temperatures throughout the region. A wildlife refuge has been overwhelmed with calls to assist injured and distressed animals. The Jennings Creek fire has burned 5,000 acres in Sterling Forest State Park along the New York-New Jersey border. (I crossed the park on my section hike of the AT earlier this year.) Sadly, an 18-year-old firefighter was killed by a falling tree while battling the blaze. Smaller fires burned in the Palisades near the Long Path, and in Bear Mountain State Park, although both were extinguished by rain last weekend.

This is New Jersey’s driest period on record in 120 years. “Two words tend to come to mind. One is ‘unprecedented’ and the other is ‘remarkable,’” Dave Robinson, New Jersey’s state climatologist, told NBC News.

Drier than usual conditions are expected to continue in the region for the foreseeable future.

I have to admit, my reaction to all of this has been muted. Of course this is happening. Even the shock of the photos of Prospect Park burning quickly subsided. Of course, of course, what else could we expect? I’m a bit horrified at this seeming indifference. I want to probe and fuss and make it hurt a bit more, but in spite of it all, I feel strangely detached.

A section of the Long Path in Minnewaska State Park that was rerouted after a wildfire in 2022.

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Reading list

• Congestion pricing is back on, apparently. I don’t know how anyone could describe it as being “fast-tracked for implementation” when it was all systems go to start this past June until Kathy Hochul’s foolish and cowardly decision to “pause” the roll-out to try to win “tough Democratic House races” (and look how that turned out). The price has been slashed nearly in half, seriously reducing the amount of money that will flow to much-needed public transportation upgrades. I guess I’m glad it’s back on but disgusted with how it played out. Let’s see if the president elect manages to still kill it once he takes office.

• Related: A good story about being disabled and hating cars and how both sides of the War on Cars (but mostly pro-car freaks) weaponize the disabled in their urban planning debates. (Paywalled—but I personally am excited to be an earlier supporter of a new feminist media group.)

• Jaywalking is legal in NYC now

• I expected this story about the blue sky plan to turn Broadway into some kind of linear park and pedestrian paradise would be more fantasy than real possibility, but was surprised at how seriously (some) of the proposals have been taken. A girl can dream!

• Tim Sheehy, the man who was accused by a Montana parks ranger about lying about being injured while in Afghanistan when he actually shot himself on a family trip to Glacier national park in 2015, defeated Jon Tester in the race for a Montana Senate seat. America continues to send the best, brightest, and most honest to Washington.

• RIP Grizzly 399

• A real-life Homeward Bound