Chicago Sidewalk After the New Year's Eve Blizzard of 1978

Chicago Sidewalk After the New Year's Eve Blizzard of 1978
Originally uploaded by randubnick.

Here's a trip down memory lane for New Year's Eve. Tonight I cropped this image out of a photograph that I took in Chicago in January of 1979, when we lived on the North Shore in Rogers Park. It all started with a blizzard on New Year's Eve, which was followed by storm after storm each day until the tops of cars were covered (we couldn't dig out for six weeks) and what had been sidewalk was reduced to little narrow paths like the one in this photo. Well, 1978 was a long time ago, and I have seen a lot of snow storms since then. I have been in blizzards in Colorado, in Kansas, in Minneapolis, in New Jersey, and in Boston -- but I have never seen a city as paralyzed by snow as Chicago was that year. The blizzard has become legendary, hence the nostalgic pastel colors in the photo. As I looked in my albums to find this picture, what surprised me the most was that I didn't take more pictures! I guess it took me some time to learn to see snow as an opportunity to make art, rather than just an obstacle or an inconvenience.