August is a funny time.
Look past the British, Italian, German and Brazilian tourists who seem to outnumber locals (and generally hang out in parts of town like Times Square, thereby hiding from the locals). Adjust for the annual month-long evacuation to the Hamptons and the traditional summer vacation season for many.
The final result is a city edited down to a distinct, often unusual crowd. The city even tries to entertain the edited down version of Manhattan by closing 7miles of Park Avenue to car traffic on Sundays, turning the center of the city into a place to play in the street (though it seems a large number of the aforementioned tourists take to Citibikes for Summer Streets, outnumbering the walking/rollerblading/hula-hooping locals).
There are concerts in the park, movies on the pier, weekend street markets and I hear rumors some people still do “summer fridays” off. The city smells slightly better on weekdays, as fewer trash bags sit on the curbs. Tables are available at all of the restaurants where a reservation is normally impossible.
It’s also audibly one of the quietest times of the year. Fewer cars to honk horns, less frequent sirens, not as much roadwork (which I’ll never understand – seems to be a good time to do that). Traffic is so light that even driving crosstown on a side street above 42nd takes a few short minutes, rather than turning out to be a half-hour mistake as it is any other time of the year.
Given the above, a stroll to Penn Station at 5 am to catch the 6 am train to DC is one of peace, quiet and that amazing sticky not-quite-hot-but-definitely-not-cold August air by the light of the brightest moon of the year. There’s an almost reverent silence. It feels like the warm air will hold you up if you let all of the tension from your body. A great time for thought and reflection.
Or, to accept the fact that the guy walking down Madison Avenue at 38th, carrying an old-school boom box while wearing a blue dinosaur suit with the mesh screen open so he can smoke a cigarette, is pretty much par for the season.