Following Sandy, Finding New Ways to Work

The ground may have dried out and the tree limbs are slowly being dragged away, but there’s another sign that the ghost of Sandy is still here: People are everywhere.

For regular work-from-home types, it’s easy to forget how many Brooklynites pack themselves onto the subway each morning, disappearing across the river to be absorbed into the high rise office buildings that fill Manhattan.

That option largely gone, people have been forced to improvise—some are enjoying their time off, taking walks through the wreckage in Prospect Park, tossing a football around in the street. Others are just trying to get some damn work done.

Avi Levine, a marketing executive from Hoboken, was one of dozens of people crammed into Brooklyn Commune Thursday morning, taking a break from her sister’s Windsor Terrace apartment at which she’s been stranded since Sunday.

“There are three adults all trying to work in one small apartment,” she said, adding that those three adults have also been forced to share just two computers. “It’s been kind of fun, but kind of crazy.”

Despite the warnings, Levine said she’d arrived in the city prepared to spend just one or two nights with her family. Now she’s facing the possibility of enduring an entire week living out of one small bag.

“I packed an overnight bag with one change of clothes, assuming I’d go back Monday night, maybe Tuesday. Now I think I’m going back maybe Sunday,” she said.

Others have the option of returning to work, but have decided the battle of trying to commute to and from Manhattan simply isn’t worth it.

Amy Sandgrund, a Windsor Terrace resident who works in the legal department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said concerns about navigating home through a blackened lower Manhattan convinced her to set up shop in Brooklyn Commune instead—though frankly, she’d rather be in the office.

“It’s actually a little stressful to work from home when it’s not planned— all my files are at work,” she said. “It’s nice if you have a planned day to work from home, but when it’s unplanned, it’s not quite as relaxing.”

Regular day-time café dwellers are taken aback by the crowds suddenly swarming their adopted workspace.

“It’s totally different for me, because usually there’s like, a third of this many people here. It’s a completely different work atmosphere—a lot crazier, a lot more kids,” said Julie Winterbottom, a writer who lives in Windsor Terrace.

But rather than begrudging the crowds for forcing her from her regular seat, Winterbottom welcomes the company.

“In a weird way, I’m actually concentrating really well. I don’t know why," she said.

“There’s a little bit of that Christmas snow day feeling, so it’s actually kind of a nice atmosphere.”