Unlike the Irish, who discuss it incessantly, New Yorkers don't talk much about the weather. When you say, making polite conversation, that the day is very wet, they look at you in a surprised fashion, as if you'd drawn attention to a fly crawling up a wall. Yet even they were drawn into comment by last week's cold snap, which brought the most freezing conditions since 1961 to the city.
As the temperature plummeted even the pigeons were trying to get indoors, taking refuge, among other places, inside the Statten Island ferry. Another ferry across the Hudson to New Jersey was slowed down as the river started to freeze over.
For the first time since the 1950s the boating pond in Central Park, where aficionados sail wonderful miniature yachts too grand to be called toys, was being used for skating. (Central Park already has another skating pond, but that gets artificial assistance.) Manhattanites unwilling to face the elements were faced with the unthinkable: actually having to cook dinner at home rather than going out to one of the city's thousands of restaurants.
The odd thing was that, as you looked out the window it seemed the best weather imaginable, with the sun shining in a clear blue sky. When you stepped out, though, a wind from the Arctic knifed through the warmest clothing, hands turned to ice blocks even in gloves, ears felt as if they were being stung by bees and lips split from the cold. It was too frigid, apparently, even to snow. And at night it was worse.
Smoking in the open
Conor O'Clery, of this parish, says he has experienced nothing like it since the days when he was The Irish Times's man in Russia. The papers and television jumped on it all with glee, carrying stories of how to avoid frostbite and warnings about smoking in the open, as inhaling the icy air might damage your lungs even more than the tobacco smoke. Some exaggeration here, I felt. New Yorkers are nothing if not a bunch of drama queens.
The dogs in the streets, of which there must be thousands, live cooped up in apartments much of the time, until their owners get home from work or unless they are taken out by a dog-walker. At $30 an hour these canine exercisers can make a decent crust. Sometimes you can see them, pooper-scoopers at the ready, with as many as 10 assorted dogs on their leashes. In fact it has been suggested to me that I might sign up as a walker myself while I'm in Manhattan, instead of swanning around the city's theatres, bars and restaurants. (Unfair, unfair, I'm just doing in the cause of research into Big Apple life.)
Given the way they live, the city's dogs are usually even keener on getting out and about than their counterparts elsewhere. But they too were reluctant to face the cold last week, coats and all. Being New Yorkers they don't wear just any old coats, of course. Jaunty and sleek, and always thoroughbred, you see them in leather, suede and fur numbers and last week, I swear, I came across a poodle who wore a matching coat and miniature top hat. The endearingly nutty side of the city lives on.
Sag Harbour
At the weekend we found ourselves in Sag Harbour on Long Island, staying with the Irish photographer Alen McWeeney, Hazel Hammond and their Jack Russell terrier, Bachelor. Sag Harbour is a beautiful little seaside town in the fashionable Hamptons, with chic little shops where you can buy things for 20 times what you'd pay in New York.
As we walked along the shore the sea was frozen for 10 yards out and only Bachelor didn't seem to mind. But then, not only is he probably America's cleverest dog but also something of a tough guy, probably because he comes from Kerry. Even my wife, who regards a swim in the rain in Donegal in November as all part of a day's entertainment, baulked at the offer of a quick dip, though we all offered her large sums of money to do it.
Thursday was the coldest night of all, but it was warmed by attending the first night of Enda Walsh's bedbound at the Irish Repertory Theatre. This excoriating play, directed by the author, was first seen at the Dublin Theatre Festival two years ago, and here, in a new production, looks like being one of the hits of the New Year.
Chelsea Hotel
In a rave review Ben Brantley, the New York Times's theatre critic calls it "a genuine and bracing original among the already well-stocked shelves of word-drunk Irish plays" and says that it is "acted with mesmerising energy and precision by Brian F. O'Byrne and Jenna Lamia". O'Byrne's performance, he goes on "is both a technical marvel, clocking in an astonishing number of words per minute, and a sexy, funny study of emotional savagery." Hear, hear, and so say all of us at the post-play party in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel, famous haunt of Brendan Behan, Dylan Thomas, Sid Vicious and other worthies, though the venue is so dark and the music so loud that it's difficult to see or hear anything much down there.
Meanwhile the temperature is rising and we're all back to being bored by weather talk. As one old lady I overhear in the local supermarket says to her equally ancient friend who's complaining about the cold: "You've got the coat, you've got the boots, so wadda ya complaining about?"