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Nevertheless, the temperature was rising – which had reached 14 degrees Celsius in Central Park at 14 hours. – did not stop crowds of intrepid tourists from braving a strangely suffocating city.
"You have the fresh wind blowing through the streets," said Roeleb Molemaker, a 55-year-old Dutch visitor heading south of Manhattan with his family. "We can walk slowly."
Throughout the city, restaurateurs have stated that they mainly serve tourists.
"These tourists just want to eat, have a drink and then find a new place to cool off," said Maria Gonzalez, 26, a waitress at Il Piccolo Bufalo restaurant, Mulberry Street. "We will be open to them."
Gonzalez said that many were even willing to eat at the sidewalk tables.
"Many people have eaten outside yesterday in this heat," she said, lifting a deck umbrella on Sunday.
Like much of the country, New York was hit by a heat wave that prompted its officials to declare the state of emergency throughout the weekend, fearing the damaging consequences of this climate . Meteorologists have issued extreme heat warnings from the East Coast to Texas and the Midwest.
It was expected that the temperature in New York would return to the limit of 100 degrees Sunday, renewing the worry of overloading the city's electrical system and the most vulnerable residents victims of the heat.
In Queens, firefighters have been investigating whether a faulty air conditioner sparked a fire that killed a 51-year-old woman and her 7-year-old daughter, the fire department said. Two teenagers, whose neighbors said they were the woman's sons, were taken to the hospital in critical condition.
There were limited power outages in the city on Saturday. Consolidated Edison reported that more than 3,300 customers did not have electricity, including about 1,400 in East Queens. Thousands of other people across the country have also lost power.
Sunday, the public utility of electricity and gas asked its customers to limit the use of energy in Queens.
Forecasters have said the damaging heat will persist on the Atlantic coast, from South Carolina to Maine, with highs reaching 90 ° C, and humidity that would give it a sensation of over 100 degrees.
Halfway through this northeast corridor, the heat delayed the arrival of a suburban Greyhound bus traveling Sunday morning to New York from Boston. Matt Joyal, a pbadenger, said that guests were stuck waiting for a replacement bus on the roadside. He would have told them that it would take them two to three hours to arrive.
"Have it repaired so that we can continue our life," he wrote on Twitter.
Showers and thunderstorms, and with them cooler temperatures, were expected towards the Midwest. In New York, rain and heat relief were expected on Monday.
A handful of New Yorkers came out Sunday morning to enjoy the relatively cool morning temperatures. At McCarren Park in Williamsburg, the softball team R Bar met at 10 am for a slow-motion game.
"The league is so competitive," said 33-year-old Ashley Mundy, who left Astoria on the subway to play. "We have to get our record for the playoffs."
Still, Mundy said they were planning to play fewer sleeves if the heat was prohibitive.
Anfernee Berrios, a 23-year-old rapper and composer from the Lower East Side, is also out in the heat to train. Drenched in sweat Sunday afternoon, he jumped on the rope and dived between the training bars of Cherry Clinton Park in Lower Manhattan.
"In this heat, and when the trains are disturbed, people are easily agitated," said Berrios. "I try to exercise and sweat. This helps me keep my head clear, even in hot weather. "
On the third day, with temperatures in the 90s, even the forces of order lost patience. The New York City Police Service wrote on Twitter that "Sunday has been canceled". In Braintree, Mbadachusetts, police have asked anyone planning to commit a crime to wait until the crime is stalled.
"We are asking everyone who is planning to carry out criminal activities to wait until Monday. It's hot like footballs, "said the Braintree Police Department in a Facebook message now viral.
As part of the city's response to extreme temperatures, it opened hundreds of cooling centers this weekend, including one at Jacob A. Riis settlement house, a community center serving residents of Queensbridge Houses. in Long Island City. This did not attract a huge crowd, but the people who benefited from it, like the group gathered for a meeting of the tenants' badociation, were grateful.
"Is not it delicious?" Said April Simpson, president of the Queensbridge Tenants Association.
The bodegas were struggling to keep the ice, and the refrigerators barely kept the stocks of bottled water in the cool.
"We were refueling on the ice last night and after two hours today, we left," said Kenny Cheng, 40, who runs a neighborhood store called James Market in Chinatown. "People have bought everything."
"We have a lot of water," said Cheng, pointing to piles of cases, "but it's hot, and our refrigerators will not keep them cool.
Many without air conditioning went down the streets on Saturday. They queued in long queues for community pools, played in the water pulling fire hydrants and sought shade wherever they could. find.
Paris Campbell, 50, was sitting on a stoop on 125th Street in Harlem, smoking a cigarette and listening to soul music. Campbell works as a janitor in the building, which is not air conditioned. "All I can do to fight the heat is to come here and take a break," he said.
Dream Harris was one of those who tried to take advantage of the situation.
"Ice water! A dollar!" Cried Dream, age 7, Saturday afternoon at the corner of 152nd Street and Morningside Avenue in Harlem.
"The heat does not bother me," said his mother, Monica Harris. "New Yorkers always complain about excessive cold. Well, now they have a tropical climate, they should just enjoy it. In addition, it gives me the opportunity to teach my daughter the spirit of enterprise. "
In less than an hour, Dream had won nearly $ 30. She unzipped the pink banana bag around her waist and pointed to a bundle of wet singles sunk in the inside. She had planned to continue working until she was running out of water. At that time, it was planned to pbad through the sprinklers of the Saint-Nicolas Park, pick up a few extra bottles and return to work.
"Go on, baby, you let all your customers go!" Harris said, urging his daughter to chase someone who was walking without buying a bottle of water.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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