4.) Dead Umbrellas

Here's a phenomenon I've never seen anywhere else I've ever been.

If you're new to NYC, or just visiting, and you go into a store to buy an umbrella, you may notice a plethora of extremely cheap, low-quality umbrellas. Now, these aren't cheap because we can't afford nice ones, but for very specific reasons.

First, since most of us don't have cars, we must carry an umbrella with us wherever we go, especially on days it may rain. This often leads to setting it down somewhere and forgetting about it. Look in any lost-and-found in NYC, and you'll see mostly umbrellas. Losing a $3 umbrella? No big deal.

Secondly, which leads us to the point of this entry, is that these cheap umbrellas are not designed to withstand the hurricane-like winds that city blocks create. You're lucky if your umbrella lasts more than one rain storm. So, very often, your umbrella is going to be destroyed. So, when you're being soaked in some torrential rain, what do you do with your broken umbrella? You throw it on the sidewalk. Thus, you have the dead umbrella. Walk the streets after a rain storm, and you'll find AT LEAST one per block. Small monuments to a shitty moment in someone else's life.

By Joe Lankheet