The Winter Olympics are over and there’s a new snow in town — the blizzard in the Northeast.
I have a particular interest because my son is stuck in New York. He flew out Friday and was scheduled to come back today. Oh well …
Meanwhile, I’ve been watching the storm on at least half a dozen live webcams and have discovered a new NYC enterprise. New to me, anyway. Some creative individuals are walking around with cameras or phones, live streaming from the streets, talking about what they’re seeing. In a sidebar, viewers are commenting to the cameraman, who often replies to them, thanks them for donations, speaks to passersby on the street, etc.
The best example of this that I found was Afraz Explores. I watched him last night for about an hour. He must have been freezing by the time he logged off after several hours outside. He was back on this morning, with about 1,000 live viewers (last night at one time he had more than 3,000).
Another one I found is The NYC Walking Show. Sifat is not on this morning but his stream from last night is on YouTube.
Sounds like Afraz may be about to log off for now, but he’s mentioned maybe visiting Central Park later today.
Images from Sifat’s NYC Walking Show last night:
Well, Afraz just logged off. I’m sorry I didn’t get this posted while he was still live. But his video from this morning is rerunning on YouTube, without the live comments on the side, of course. Here ’tis:
And last night’s video from The NYC Walking Show seems to be running on YouTube with streaming comments on the side. I can’t tell if they are live or from last night.
These creative New Yorkers are certainly more interesting than Weather Channel reporters telling us how to walk on snowy sidewalks, or demonstrating how much snow equals how much water, or calling a snow blower a snow plow.
fascinating! thanks for sharing.
For all I know, this is a common practice in many cities. But this was the first time I’d seen it and I thought it was interesting.
That’s BRILLIANT, Colorado ! – what a marvellous service they’re providing ! I’ve never heard or read anything about it on Bluesky, and they’re always going on about forthcoming bad weather. So maybe it is just New York. You Yanks ! – you’re breakers of barriers (when The System allows it) ! 🙂
Yes, it was an historically bad storm.
I was so intrigued that these guys thought of a way to make some money and attract subscribers to their channels just by walking around with their cameras/phones. Of course they had to be willing to get out in the storm to do it. Kudos to them.
Something very beautiful about the city streets in the snow. I’m glad people are getting behind those getting out and about in it, not easy conditions to work in!
Sifat, from the NYC Walking Show, seemed to have a particular talent for grabbing beautiful views … which were everywhere on this night. I was also very impressed that these guys thought of a way to make money from the situation. So creative.