A month or two ago, Laura and I walked down the
High Line in a heat wave. As the sun was setting and it was still 100°F out, we literally ran to a frozen fruit bar vendor we saw near the 30th Street staircase. As we walked away with our spoils, we noticed them melting
a lot more rapidly than we had expected – it was like someone had turned a faucet on in our hands. So after fumbling around for a few steps, we stopped at one of the benches that line the park to finish our popsicles before they disappeared completely. We were only half successful:
Woops.
And then I noticed something pretty awesome when we got up and kept walking – visual evidence of all New Yorkers getting outside in this heat, having the same idea, and getting through it in the same way that we did.
The popsicle puddles continued for several steps and several benches. I bet there's some cool calculation you could run here – involving the temperature, size of popsicle, rate of melting, steps taken, average walking speed per person and opportunity cost – that would predict or dictate when the puddles would stop.
