CENTRAL PARK — New Yorkers braved frigid, windy weather to frolic in heaps of newly fallen snow Friday morning.
Kids who got the day off from school thanks to the storm — which dumped up to 9 inches on parts of the city — trekked outdoors to build snowmen and race downhill on sleds, even as temperatures stayed in the low teens.
In Jackson Heights, 10-year-old Joe Apupalo tried to build a snowman with his sister Angie Apupalo, 3, but quickly gave up and had fun rolling around in the snow.
"I think it's really great," Joe said, "but sometimes it can also be bad."
Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged that the school closures and snow conditions were tempting, but he warned that kids and their parents needed to be careful in the extreme elements.
"It is very, very cold," de Blasio said Friday at a press conference on the city's snow response. "There will be other opportunities to get out there and have fun, but hopefully in temperatures that aren't quite this brutal, so I'd like to urge caution."
On the Lower East Side, Eleanor Kaminski, 6, lay down in the snow outside the Seward Park Co-op and swung her arms and legs to make an angel.
"I am going to make the best ever snow angel," she said.
She was playing with her friends Charlotte Hillam-Kanada, 7, and Eden Reinfurt, 7, who also made snow angels and tossed snowballs.
"They were so excited this morning," said Jayne Hillam, Charlotte's mother. "Let's do this before we freeze."
In Washington Square Park, kids pelted each other with snowballs in between building snowmen and making snow angels.
"I’m excited because I don’t have any school," said Munro Murray, 7, who lives near Washington Square Park. “I like it like this because I like having snowball fights.”
Central Park was quiet early Friday, but by late morning, several dozen kids and teens had converged on Cedar Hill, near East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue, for some of the best sledding in the city.
"We picked this hill because it's the only good one here," said Michael, 15, who lives on the Lower East Side.
He kept warm in a facemask and gloves from Vermont, but said he didn't plan to stay long.
"It's going to get crowded," he said.
Veronique, 37, brought her 2-year-old and 4-year-old sons to Cedar Hill Friday morning, bundled in snow pants and heavy jackets.
"It's the biggest hill and it's got the best cover," Veronique said. "The boys need to get outside and they love the snow."
In Madison Square Park, Frederico Torrini, 38, a visitor from Rome, paused to look at the pristine snow on his way to Eataly.
"It's like a big white blanket. Like sugar," Torrini said. "I want to pick it up and eat it."
With reporting by Mathew Katz, Leslie Albrecht, Ben Fractenberg, Trevor Kapp and Lindsay Armstrong
