Barring dream sequences in big-budget Hollywood films, few of us have ever seen New York’s busy streets completely empty of cars – so today is our lucky day. From 11pm EST last night, at the mayor’s command, 6,000 miles of the city’s roads were closed to non-emergency vehicles, due to the huge snowstorm known as “Juno”. At time of writing, they’re still closed.
The storm itself has so far been a little underwhelming – hardly the once-in-a-century blizzard we were promised – but the sight of the city’s empty streets is strikingly eerie. Here’s Times Square, which looks like the set of a disaster film (apart from the guy taking a selfie, that is):
Image: Getty.
Police cars blocked entrances to streets:
Image: Getty.
These guys, meanwhile, took the opportunity to have a snowball fight in the middle of the street:
Image: Getty.
And the top-voted image on reddit today is this shot from above of an empty 10th avenue:
The picture’s popularity seems to show both that a high proportion of social media users live in New York, and that people quite like the idea of car-free city streets.