New York City, March 16, 2017

★★★ The schoolyard was still icebound and the sidewalk snowbanks, yellow-stained, pressed in on the streams of parents and children coming from opposite directions toward two different doorways. A pair of wide-axled strollers locked up at cross purposes in the turbulent flow. Trembling rivulets of meltwater covered the glass side of the Apple Store. A man pointed a cameraphone at the building from across the street as the roof kept shedding ice. One flat chunk came flying and flipping down to land with a light crunch outside the protective rope. Out on Broadway, something fell heavily on a totally unprotected patch of pavement by the corner of the furniture store. The sun was warm and the air was not. Cleared snow lay in thick broken slabs. A canopy stood swaybacked with its unshed burden. At rush hour, some of the puddles were all liquid water, free of slush. The halal cart, missing at dinnertime the night before, had found a place to park.