Quiet neighborhood survives Sandy intact Halloween celebrated as usual, candies for costumed tots Fair or not, the rich stay protected on the hill Carnegie Hill is an enclave on the Upper East Side which usually enjoys a fair amount of peace and quiet compared to other pieces of the very busy mixed Manhattan mosaic, where businesses large and small mix with residential living and neighborhoods are often bisected by busy avenues with noisy traffic. This peaceful district stretches East from the grand apartment mansions of Fifth Avenue which overlook the tennis courts and reservoir lake in Central Park, past the impressive citadels of Park Avenue, to Lexington Avenue. North and South the boundaries are 86 Street and 96 Street. The avenues are relatively free of noise because trucks are banned East of Lex, though Madison Avenue is often clogged in the weekend getaway rush. Most of the noise comes from children when they are let out at the numerous schools in the vicinity such as Dalton, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Spence, Hunter, Manhattan Country, La Scuola D'Italia Guglielmo Marconi and uncountable others. In this tree lined family neighborhood residents and their usually blond children can live their lives in safety and security without much of the stress and strain of more highly trafficked areas. Many families occupy the brownstones which line the side streets, which they may have bought and renovated at vast expense over a year or two, much to the dismay of their neighbors, who must suffer through an unwonted early morning racket as period houses are gutted and rebuilt to suit modern tastes for light and internal space. Sometimes the money involved is fairly stupendous. The Audubon Society mansion at 94th and Fifth, which was taken over by the International Center of Photography, ended up a few years ago in private hands, bought for a reported $20 million, and was then renovated for $50 million, according to street rumor. In other words, privilege reigns, though many residents arrived long ago and thus if renting enjoy stabilization which has kept their monthly bill below market rates, and others cannily invested in brownstones early enough that they didn't pay the huge sums their abodes are now worth. Untouched by Sandy, except for a few branches and many leaves So what did Hurricane Sandy do to disturb the equanimity of those who live on top of this particular hill? Not much, as it turns out. Not only did three key restaurants on 92 Street and Madison stay open even as the hurricane visited its maximum wrath on the unperturbed residents, but Yura continued to open up each morning at crack of dawn to serve them their accustomed fruit juice, bread cutlets, cakes and coffee. Even as eighty homes were gutted by fire in Queens, lower Manhattan was inundated and lost power below 34 Street, and coastal piers and mansions were wrecked by seas which lifted ships onto shore and boats onto rail lines and into the back gardens of demolished houses, the only slight interference with the routines of Carnegie Hill was that Starbucks closed for two days, which was a heavy blow for the many residents who seem nowadays incapable of making coffee at home. In fact, while the rest of the City struggled to remove water from the tunnels and comfort those made homeless a hundred times over by the great fire in Queens, as well as those who suffered even greater tragedy, such as a mother whose two children were swept to their doom from on top of her stalled automobile, life went on as usual on 94th Street on Halloween evening, when the socially liveliest homeowners dispensed candies to tiny tots in cute costumes escorted by their parents, also winningly costumed. The little angels typically thanked them very politely, too, we were glad to see, while afterwards reflecting on the strange extremes of life experienced by different New Yorkers who live so intermingled with each other in their daily work lives. Not that the privileged on 94th Street necessarily escaped the disruption of their lives in other places by Sandy, of course. Early next morning we ran into one homeowner who had enlivened Halloween with his generosity the night before, who was leaving for his house on Long Island that had been damaged by Sandy earlier. Then there was a friend, Amy Madden, recently inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, who reported that a Larry Rivers artwork she had lent to a gallery in Chelsea had been submerged and ruined, amid the many galleries and stores in the far West 2O's that went underwater. Meanwhile, homeowners in Rockaway and Staten Island were drowning in their homes. One put his family in the attic, went down to the basement, and was electrocuted.