{"id":141061,"date":"2026-02-21T16:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T16:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/141061\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T16:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T16:14:08","slug":"all-that-the-ice-leaves-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/141061\/","title":{"rendered":"All That the Ice Leaves Behind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo by Yvonne V\u00e1vra.<\/p>\n

by Yvonne V\u00e1vra<\/p>\n

One by one, they\u2019re disappearing. The ice banks that rose after last month\u2019s epic snowstorm are almost finished collapsing into grimy mounds along the curb. At first, they felt majestic and dramatic in a good way. But quickly, they became barricades that were hard to navigate, in ever-deepening shades of yellow and brown.<\/p>\n

Now, as the city thaws, we\u2019re saying goodbye to the ice and hello to everything it preserved. Wrappers, pill bottles, cigarette butts, takeout containers, an inexplicable amount of cardboard, and, yes, a faucet, are just some of the things I discovered in the melting messes. And then there\u2019s what the dogs left behind \u2014 or rather, what their owners did. (Pupper West Siders aren\u2019t to blame. All of them are pure as snow, and not the curb kind.)<\/p>\n

Taken together, we\u2019re looking at four weeks of neighborhood life. Compacted, frozen, and now revealed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A month\u2019s worth of the city\u2019s detritus is slowly emerging from the mounds of snow.<\/p>\n

Go to Central Park and you\u2019ll see what else can be left behind when ice clears the ground. Not this winter\u2019s ice, though. An older, much older version. The OG ice. The one that began advancing about 2.6 million years ago, at the start of the most recent major ice age.<\/p>\n

Its final act around here, known as the Wisconsin glaciation, pushed south from Canada roughly 90,000 years ago and reached New York City somewhere between 25,000 and 20,000 years ago, depending on which geologist you ask. But on the scale of Earth\u2019s history, 5,000 years is nothing more than a hot minute. What matters is this: A massive wall of ice covered what would soon, a few hot minutes later, become the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n

The ice is estimated to have been about 1,000 to 2,000 feet thick \u2014 at least as tall as the Chrysler Building, and possibly even taller than the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower. Picture it with Lady Liberty on top, pedestal included, and you\u2019re in the right ballpark.<\/p>\n

As this massive glacier moved along, carrying a medley of rocks, from giant boulders to tiny pebbles, it scraped and polished the landscape. When the ice began to melt and retreat around 18,000 years ago, it left behind exposed bedrock and everything it had gathered along the way, including the giant boulders now scattered across Central Park, still telling their Ice Age stories.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The smooth curves of the boulders are a record of the glacier that slowly buffed away their rough edges.<\/p>\n

They really do. The boulders\u2019 smooth curves are a record of the glacier slowly buffing away their rough edges as it dragged them south for miles and miles. Just as impressive is the way the ice sculpted the region\u2019s rocky surfaces, carving long scratches into the bedrock. Have you ever noticed the deep grooves and striations running across the park\u2019s outcrops in parallel lines? They\u2019re what make those rocks so easy and fun to climb. But they\u2019re also evidence of the glacier\u2019s path, moving from northeast to southwest, scarring the stone with the debris it carried along.<\/p>\n

When you slide down the rocks\u2026 wait, you\u2019ve never? Well, when you do, very soon, notice how smooth the surface feels. That\u2019s what thousands of years of glacial exfoliation can do, the ultimate deep peel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Belvedere Castle, perched atop Vista Rock, the second-highest natural point in the park.<\/p>\n

One of Central Park\u2019s most impressive bedrock outcrops is Umpire Rock, by the baseball fields near 63rd Street. It\u2019s covered with plenty of evidence of the glacier\u2019s passage \u2014 and plenty of tourists. For a less crowded experience, climb Summit Rock, which stretches from 82nd to 85th Street along Central Park West. It\u2019s the park\u2019s highest natural elevation, and if you look down 83rd Street, you can see all the way to New Jersey, should you feel so inclined. If you prefer scenery of the non-Jersey variety, head east to Vista Rock, the park\u2019s second-highest natural point. There, you can admire another massive outcrop scarred by the ice and enjoy the extra perk of Belvedere Castle perched atop it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All winter long, we disappear a little, under coats, blankets and perfectly good excuses to just not.<\/p>\n

In what shape will we be when our seasonal ice sheet retreats for good? As we clean up what the sidewalk glaciers exposed, I\u2019m thinking about how the cold hides parts of us, too. All winter long, we disappear a little \u2014 under coats, under blankets, under perfectly good excuses to just not. Soon, when the last stubborn clumps of ice are gone and we reemerge from under our covers, we\u2019ll see what out-of-sight habits have accumulated and what marks this winter has left on us. Once it\u2019s all out in the open, we get to choose what to swipe away and what to carry forward. The bedrock beneath us wasn\u2019t so lucky.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Yvonne V\u00e1vra. by Yvonne V\u00e1vra One by one, they\u2019re disappearing. The ice banks that rose after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,4709,9,24,63,8555,129,131,130,20020],"class_list":{"0":"post-141061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-central-park","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-snow","14":"tag-the-bronx","15":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","16":"tag-the-bronx-news","17":"tag-yvonne-vavra"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}