In an era of extreme heat, let’s think differently about cooling off.
From around Memorial Day to Labor Day, New York City has always been transported to the tropics. Long before global warming stalked us, the city’s summer months seethed with high temperatures and punishing humidity. But the first Europeans who settled here did not come from Mediterranean Europe, where residents were accustomed to avoiding the midday sun. Though we’re at about the same latitude as Rome and Madrid, we’ve never had siestas. Could New Yorkers use an afternoon nap in the shade, or some other change to our daily cycles to keep us a little cooler?
It’s worth more than a thought experiment. Once, all Mediterranean cities had siestas from about 2 to 5 p.m.. Small cities in Andalucia or in Greece and elsewhere still have total shutdowns, but the major cities have sprawled too far for workers to go back to their homes to eat lunch, take a nap and then return to work — although some midday closures of shops and offices are still common, even in big cities.
New York commutes tend to be too long for a workday split into two shifts. But in the summer, the workday could easily start and finish earlier. An ideal situation, in my view, would have New Yorkers wake up in the cool of the early morning, get to work by 7 a.m., and leave by one in the afternoon — adding up to a six-hour summer workday that could be compensated for by longer hours in the cooler months. A proposal for such a dramatic seasonal shift would be a big challenge to enact, but no larger than the way work from home has already altered workers’ schedules.
I’m old enough to remember New York before air conditioning. I recall the red eyes of morning subway riders who hadn’t slept the night before and were now jammed into a hot IRT car. I heard tales of people who slept on the fire escapes or roofs of apartment buildings. My parents told me that was common in their generation.
Now we get relief when the windows are sealed shut, surely a good thing overall. Alas, all the ACs whirring in windows or blowing cold air into our rooms from a central source account for a substantial share of the city’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. As we cool our homes, offices and vehicles, we make the outside air hotter still.
Are there other ways we might get some relief? Shade is a big help, but gone are the once-ubiquitous awnings that projected over storefronts, creating shaded gallerias on commercial streets. Only at cross streets did pedestrians have to squint in the sun. Small awnings once also hooded the windows of apartment houses. Gone also, in office buildings especially, are windows that can be opened. The city would do well to rediscover these low-tech sources of relief from heat and rely less on air conditioning.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave the city a great gift by directing that a million trees be planted on our streets. Some of these streets hadn’t known shade since the Lenape dwelled here. This arboreal renewal may be a more consequential legacy than any urban renewal project in the city’s history. Lines of trees shade miles of sidewalks that would otherwise cook in the sun.
If earlier and shorter summer hours were in effect, workers could sleep in the afternoon and enliven the city at night. Or they might pass their afternoons in or alongside water — the greatest cooler of all. The city has plenty of it.
The Central Park Reservoir (no longer used to store drinking water) could be converted into a very big swimming pool. Access would be only on foot. There would be no reduction in parkland; changing rooms could be built over the water. And not only are the beaches at Coney Island and the Rockaways within city boundaries, but so are the Hudson and East Rivers. Those rivers once held cribs for swimmers and could again. Waterside recreation shouldn’t require trips upstate or to Long Island.
We seem to have forgotten that the digital revolution was supposed to allow people more leisure. And what better time for that leisure than summer? Swimming in the reservoir and in a cleaner East River are not impossible goals. Parisians are now swimming in the Seine because the government devoted resources to cleaning it up. How about it, New York?