Friday's parting shot

The intricate snow sculpture is on Fourth Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery... Deborah Blau created this in about two hours the other evening ... in an Instagram post, she notes the name: Either "The Goddess of 4th Street" OR "Dreaming of Better Days." 

Photo by Derek Berg

Thursday's parting shots

EVG reader Danny shared these photos from today... East Village-style sledding on the small slope of the lawn in Tompkins Square Park ...

2 scenes from Winter Storm Gail in black and white

And a few more photos from Winter Storm Gail... these are courtesy of EVG reader Stephen Kent Jusick...  

The top photo is looking south on Broadway at 14th Street, 2:24 a.m. Long exposure, low angle, shot from the street. 

And below, the Alamo at Astor Place, 2:36 a.m. ... (click on the images to go big!)...

A post-storm look at East Village curbside dining

Based on an early-morning walk on several side streets and avenues... it appears that the curbside dining structures (streetearies!) passed their first major winter test during the nor'easter...

The City suspended curbside dining as of 2 p.m. yesterday when the Department of Sanitation's snow alert took effect. Per Eater:

In a snow alert situation, restaurants are required to secure their furniture, remove electric heaters from the road, and remove overhead coverings, if possible. Restaurants don’t, however, need to remove any structures or barriers this time around.

It's possible that restaurants will be able to resume roadside dining this evening at the earliest. 

The city recently imposed more guidelines on restaurants, such as requiring that streetside barriers being filled with 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of sand or soil.

And the structures, many of them quite elaborate, looked to have made it through Winter Storm Gale...

... and even some of the less-sturdy-looking structures along St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue seemed to fare OK...

The next question is whether NYC bars-restaurants will be able to survive winter with a ban on indoor dining, reluctance on behalf of patrons to eat outside in cold weather and other ever-changing restrictions that will make staying open extremely difficult, owners and operators have said. 

Restaurant industry officials point to the state's own data showing that restaurants and bars made up 1.4 percent of COVID-19 cases in the last three months, compared to private gatherings, which constituted nearly 74 percent.

11 p.m. in the East Village, and scenes from Winter Storm Gail

As of this posting (5:42 a.m. — good morning!), a snow-sleet combo continues to lash the city as the nor'easter — Winter Storm Gail — slowly moves on.

Forecasts for final snow totals range from 8-12 inches to a Jake Gyllenhaal/"The Day After Tomorrow"-type event ... we'll have more on the particulars in one of the 78 upcoming snow posts this morning.

Meanwhile, EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos from a stroll around the neighborhood last night at 11...

... and in Tompkins Square Park...