I went out today, a day after New York City was hit with a massive snow storm. These types of storms are no big deal, but when they hit New York, it shuts down one of the busiest cities in the world. I walked down streets that normally would be jammed with traffic. Cars, trucks, people quickly walking to work, food stands and honking were all eerily missing. And it was…. peaceful.

Walking around was a mix between the first scene of Vanilla Sky (where Tom Cruise is running through an empty Times Square) and the turn of the 20th century. There were no cars. Even if they wanted to drive, most streets weren’t plowed yet. And the ones that were plowed had more people walking than cars driving.

Below are some photos I took. You can click on any of them for higher resolution

A street in Astoria, Queens

Buried cop car

Jay St, Brooklyn

Walking down Smith St, Brooklyn (extremely strong winds forced me to walk backwards for a couple blocks)

Everyone walking down Smith St

Father, Son time

Most streets looked like this

And a funny bonus vid. These pigeons were incredibly confused and kept eating snow thinking it was food. I didn’t get a lot of it recorded because some guy scared them away.