Snow in New York City is an emotional journey. Snowfall begins as a quiet, introspective experience, the white flakes wafting around buildings and cars like billions of dandelion seeds tethered to each other, silently settling down into windswept corners of alleys and curbsides.

The weather determines the shape, density, and contours – the emotions – of the gathering snow. Light, like optimism. Heavy, like responsibility. Damp, like cynicism. Icy, like rage. Sullen, like nostalgia. Bright, like hope. Everything, like you. 

Snow, like life, is shaped by its surrounding conditions and forces. New York City snow, unsurprisingly, is composed of a complex melding of moods and textures that, like wine, give it a unique provenance found nowhere else. Ultimately, the emotions of snow, like all emotions, fade into the anaerobic indifference of time. New York City snow, like its people, disappears in its own way.

Dribbling from numbered awnings into unseen drains, seeping from piles of snow pushed up by prim doormen toward curbsides littered with thoughts, dripping from fire escapes and lamp posts onto wet sidewalks filled with the grit, ruin, and relevance of anonymous people who pass by, year after year. Quiet. Profound… Snow.

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