The magical swirl of snow that enshrouded New York City in 26 inches of virginal white powder on January 23rd has all but melted into oblivion. Even those bottomless slush lagoons have mostly evaporated, taking their murderous monsters with them (for now). But grotesque remnants of all that snow still linger on street corners and curbsides all over town, the last mutant reminders of all the pollution and soot that makes New York such a vibrant, dynamic city.
Photographer Scott Lynch went out on assignment for Gothamist yesterday to document the last filthy vestiges of the January blizzard, bearing witness to repellent unclean horror throughout one-term mayor Bill de Blasio's New York—specifically, the East Village, Lower East Side, Chinatown, Soho, Slushwick Bushwick, and Nolita. Gothamist is proud to present Lynch's nastiest captures, each one more shocking than the last.
There's a certain bracing honesty in the way once-innocent NYC snow becomes corrupted—and yet still, underneath all that grime, an adamantine core of purity endures. We are all snow mounds, in a way, battling different degrees of dirt and trash as we struggle to endure a fast-melting future, or try to escape Death's relentless shoveling. (Must Death shovel so loudly at 2 a.m. when we're trying to sleep? The snow is still falling, dude!) In the immortal words of J.J. Hunsecker, we "love this dirty town."
