A walk through my Upper Manhattan neighborhood during the height of the storm that hit on February 25, 2010. The storm is expected to last until Saturday, February 27. The only happy people seemed to be the snow plow operators who are making a killing this year.  The fierce and bitter wind felt like a blizzard.

In December the same walk yielded lots of smiling, happy faces enjoying the first big snow storm to hit New York City in a long time. By February, it seems the snow has worn out it's welcome and there were few happy faces to be found this time around.

Earlier in the day, a pedestrian was struck and killed by a tree branch that fell in Central Park just west of Fifth Avenue and 67th Street. Another branch fell on a New York City bus on Fifth Avenue causing the closing of Fifth for some time.  It was a rough day for New Yorkers and the outlook is for more of the same at least until late Friday with snow expected to continue until Saturday morning.

***Update: Mayor Bloomberg reversed his decision to keep schools open which had upset and surprised many parents. The mayor announced early this morning that schools would be closed. This is only the seventh school closing in 32 years in NYC, a rare occassion indeed.

Featured in this iReport are Angel, hoping for a cab; and Jenny and Meghan who were kind enough to stop and answer some questions for this iReport in spite of the bitter cold blowing wind and snow.

Although the snow has now slowed to occassional trickles, New York City has received twenty-one inches of snow in Central Park and another two or three are expected before it is all over.