Tales from The Social Club: Keeping Cool and Playing Cards

Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, July 29, 2025 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM

Meeting Location: Brookfield Place, 230 Vesey St, New York, NY 10281

Website Link: https://bfplny.com/

We met by the real palm trees in the cool air conditioning at Brookfield Place.

The Atrium at Brookfield Place

It was a hot and humid day. We all shared ways that we stay cool in the heat. One way I stay cool is daydreaming. If you can think of a cold place you have been in your mind, you can escape the heat. Where did I get my inspiration? Well, from this episode of a TV series called Recess I watched growing up in mornings before walking to Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle, NY.

After this discussion, we found a place to sit down. We ordered food from different places (it is a food court). After we all got food, we played a card game called Hearts. We played a total of 2 games, the first of which I won and the second of which I came in second place. We played with 3 players in the 1st game and 4 in the second. For those who don't know the rules of that card game, you can read them here.

What really stood out from that day was the heat. So much so that many Social Club members chose to stay home. Only half of the members showed maybe less. The heat was difficult to walk in. In order to move around, I had to move slowly and drink lots of water. High heat makes it difficult to complete outdoor tasks and attend social events in the summer. It takes more energy to do things that require moving through outdoor heat, such as commuting to social events or run errands. It is understandable that many people chose to skip the meeting for The Social Club during this heat wave due the difficulties of moving around during hot weather.

In scheduling events for The Social Club, you might be wondering whether the weather ever cancelled an meeting. Since joining The Social Club in October 2023, a meeting has never been cancelled due to the weather. This is a combination of luck and the fact that the vast majority of our meetings are indoors. That being said when outdoor events are planned, there is usually an indoor meeting place to start the event. For example, we started one meeting in a restaurant before going outside for a walk in Central Park to view the Cherry Blossom Trees in bloom. So if it had poured rain that day, we would have the option to stay inside for the entire meeting.

With that said, I must mention that we have also been very lucky. New York City does get severe weather that could cancel an event, just not as frequently as a city such as Miami, Florida. The severe weather type I am talking about is hurricanes. I want to issue a caveat (warning) that this discussion on the past has absolutely no bearing on what might occur in the future. Human-caused global warming makes NYC more susceptible to coastal flooding from storms due to sea level rise and warming ocean temperatures. In one of my favorite PBS Nova documentaries on global warming, meteorologist Paul Douglass sums up global warming's impact on the weather in this quote: "Most people sense a change in the weather. It's not your imagination." You can watch the full documentary here.

The strongest storm to impact NYC in my lifetime was Superstorm Sandy on the night of October 29, 2012 (which had sustained winds in the mid to upper 70 mph range). The storm surge flooded many NYC subway tunnels as well as the Brooklyn-Battery, Queens-Midtown, and Holland Tunnels used for highway traffic. At the time, I was a student at then-named Manhattan College (now Manhattan University) which is actually located in the Bronx, NY. While my residence hall was on higher ground far away from any body of water (flooding and storm surge were not issues), what I remember most is the wind. My residence hall was not damaged from the wind, but lost power. The winds were so strong I thought the windows might shatter. I was on the 8th floor of a ten story building and had never been through a storm with winds that high. The storms that came closest were nor'easters (a type of snowstorm) that produced winds in the 40 to 60 mph range. The power remained out for 2 weeks. I remember the first week classes were cancelled because of the storm, but by the second week classes had returned. The power loss on campus only impacted my residence hall and the gymnasium.

So, yes, fortunately The Social Club schedule has not been impacted by a storm as powerful as Sandy. Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before another storm of that magnitude hits NYC. Historically, NYC has even dealt with storms stronger than Sandy. In 1938, a category 3 hurricane (sustained winds in the 111 to 129 mph range) made a direct hit on Long Island (just east of NYC). Because the storm was moving unusually fast for a hurricane (over 50 mph as opposed to the 10 to 15 mph forward speed these storms typically average), it was nicknamed the Long Island Express.

When dealing with natural disasters, being prepared in advance is important to survival. That means making a plan for what to do in different disaster scenarios. You can find information on how to do this at ready.gov.

As for The Social Club, if we were expecting weather like this that would put members in danger, I’m sure we’d reschedule the event for a date that would be safer. For more typical inclement weather, Juliette always has a back-up plan to make sure we don’t get too soaked—or overheated.