NEW YORK — At midafternoon, when blast-furnace heat had settled over the streets of New York, people found small refuges and stayed there.
Danielle Freeman stood perfectly still in a 3-foot-wide ribbon of shade afforded by an awning; Michael Gray set down his folding chair on a corner of Canal Street that he swore got an occasional breeze from the Hudson River. And Leslie Boulden, who sells sunglasses from a stand on Park Avenue, made trips into the cool glass lobby of Citibank.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday July 21, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 45 words Type of Material: Correction
Heat wave: An article in Wednesday's Section A said the "urban heat island" -- an effect created in large cities when heat is trapped and then released by concrete and asphalt -- could increase the temperature by 50 degrees. It should have said 10 degrees.
Dangerous heat settled over the Central Plains and Northeast for another day Tuesday, producing record high temperatures in New York and Connecticut, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Weather Service. An air mass that had California sweltering late last week was moving steadily to the east, he said, picking up moisture along the way.
In New York, the thermometer measured 99 degrees at LaGuardia Airport and 95 in Central Park; the heat index, which adds the effect of humidity, was 101 degrees. Storms today should bring relief, with temperatures expected to drop into the 80s.
The heat caused a malfunction in a power feed to LaGuardia for most of the day, causing dozens of flights to be canceled. On Monday, 70 subway passengers were stranded for 2 1/2 hours on an elevated stretch of track because the heat caused the electrified third rail to expand and buckle, said Charles Seaton, a spokesman for New York City Transit.
Ed Schultz, who lives in an attic apartment in Brooklyn, left his house Tuesday with rivulets of sweat running down his neck. Schultz said the heat had kept him "almost immobilized" since Sunday. Schultz, 55, has no air-conditioning. But he makes do by dumping a bucket of water over himself -- once an hour -- and standing in front of a fan.
If the heat becomes intolerable, he pays the $2 for a ride on the subway, which is air-conditioned. The height of the summer, he said, is "pretty much suffering.... But air-conditioning costs money."
The structure of large cities exacerbates extreme heat by trapping radiation -- an effect known as the "urban heat island," said Johannes Feddema, a visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Light is absorbed by dark surfaces like asphalt and concrete; when the city begins to cool in the evening, those surfaces release the heat they have absorbed, occasionally increasing the temperature by as much as 50 degrees.
