New York is no stranger to winter. Snowstorms and bitter cold are part of the city’s long, inconvenient relationship with reality. What is unfamiliar—deeply so—is the sense that City Hall seemed flat-footed when Winter Storm Fern arrived on January 25 and the Arctic chill that followed turned routine winter management into a public test of competence. By that measure, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration fumbled badly.

Weeks later, the evidence is still on the streets. Snowbanks remain piled high along curbs and crosswalks, narrowing roadways and turning corners into blind hazards. Side streets in outer-borough neighborhoods look less like city blocks than half-cleared parking lots, with compacted ice now frozen into stubborn, dirty ridges. The failure to clear thoroughly and swiftly has compounded itself; once snow hardens into ice, every delay becomes a multiplier of difficulty, expense, and danger. This is not merely an aesthetic problem. It is a safety issue for drivers navigating narrowed lanes, for seniors trying to cross streets, and for parents pushing strollers through slush that has refrozen into jagged obstacles.

The consequences have spilled into sanitation. With snow still choking curb access, DSNY crews have struggled to reach collection points, leaving mounds of garbage bags marooned on sidewalks and medians. The cityscape is taking on the unseemly look of a neglected dumping ground, with refuse accumulating in drifts beside snowbanks. Rats, opportunistic and tireless, have predictably followed the feast. Filth breeds more filth, and the longer waste lingers, the harder it becomes to restore basic cleanliness. This is how civic neglect becomes visible—and visceral.

Winter management is not glamorous, but it is foundational. Clearing snow, maintaining access for sanitation, and protecting basic mobility are table stakes for urban governance. The storm did not arrive without warning, nor did the cold snap materialize out of thin air. The city had time to prepare, to pre-position resources, to surge staffing, and to communicate clearly with residents. What New Yorkers experienced instead was the sense of an administration reacting late, scaling slowly, and then moving on while the mess lingered.

Leadership is tested in the unphotogenic moments: the plowing of side streets, the clearing of corners, the unblocking of trash routes. New Yorkers don’t need speeches about resilience; they need clean streets, passable sidewalks, and garbage picked up on time. Winter Storm Fern has passed. The failures it exposed should not be allowed to freeze into the city’s new normal.