New York Today: Greenmarket Blues

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Slim pickings at the Union Square market on Monday.

Updated 10:02 a.m.

Good morning. It is 18 degrees.

Still more snow is coming late tomorrow. Tough times for urban foragers:

It’s not exactly growing season.

But across New York City, two dozen farmer’s markets stay open through the winter.

They can be lonely places, and kind of drab, too.

“Every once in a while you’ll see a nice green or red color,” thanks to hothouse veggies, said Liz Carollo of the city’s Greenmarket program.

Mostly, though, there are roots â€" potatoes and turnips and rutabagas â€" and apples from storage, and frozen meat.

And hardy grains like freekeh and spelt berries â€" “I pretty much live off those items in the winter,” Ms. Carollo said.

One bright spot â€" the pastel-colored eggs of Araucana hens, back from their winter break.

In the gigantic walk-in freezer otherwise known as Borough Hall plaza in Brooklyn, there were exactly three vendors the other afternoon:

An egg-and-cheese stand, a purveyor of lunch-to-go veggie patties that were in fact mostly frozen, and a honey seller.

“You got a good market here even in the winter,” said the honey man, Bill Hamil, of Roxbury, N.Y., three hours north of the city. “But it’s cold here. This is a windy spot.”

The honey in the jars appeared nearly solid.

“If you held it upside-down long enough, it would start to flow,” Mr. Hamil said. “Just wait.”

Here’s what else you need to know.

WEATHER

Nice and cold: sunny with a high of 25.

Similar deal tomorrow, then look out: Snow late tomorrow night, maybe up to six inches in the city, likely mixing with ice and rain and messing up Thursday.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or N.J. Transit status.

Path: Main W.T.C. entrance closed because of falling ice. Check latest status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is suspended today for snow removal and tomorrow for Lincoln’s Birthday.

COMING UP TODAY

- Mayor de Blasio addresses a clergy breakfast in Bedford-Stuyvesant about pre-K. He’s also on Univision at 6 p.m.

- A state lawmaker will propose banning those tiny beads in facial scrubs and toothpaste, which cleanse your body but pollute the Great Lakes. [New York Times]

- It is Our Lady of Lourdes Day. Cardinal Dolan will celebrate it at Our Lady of Lourdes school and church in Harlem at 9 a.m.

- An auction of paintings of dogs at Bonhams at 10 a.m. coincides with the second and final day of the Westminster dog show.

- Fashion Week continues at, among other places, Avery Fisher Hall. Our colleagues at the On the Runway blog take a peek.

- An art show featuring the work of cartoonists in various media and materials, “The Many Identities of the Struggling Cartoonist,” opens at Theater for the New City in the East Village. 5 to 8 p.m. [Free]

- Henry Winkler reads from his children’s book “Bookmarks Are People, Too!” at Barnes & Noble in TriBeCa. 6 p.m. [Free]

- The author of “Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto,” Camilo José Vergara, talks at the Gotham Center at CUNY’s Midtown graduate center. 6:30 p.m. [Full but standby seats may be available]

- Rachel Kushner, author of the National Book Award nominee “The Flamethrowers,” talks with James Wood of The New Yorker at Powerhouse Books in Dumbo. 7 p.m. [Free]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- Mayor de Blasio proposed higher minimum wages and a city ID card available to all, regardless of immigration status, at his State of the City address. [New York Times]

- Two people survived when their car plunged at least 20 feet off a Cross Bronx Expressway overpass. [CBS New York]

- A 14-year-old runaway was rescued from a home in Queens where she was being kept as a sex slave, the police said. [Daily News]

- Another 18 subpoenas were issued in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing investigation in New Jersey. [New York Times]

- A memorial mural to Philip Seymour Hoffman has popped up in the East Village. [Gothamist]

- An upstate vineyard took home best white wine honors at the Florida State Fair international wine and grape juice competition. [Rochester Democrat and Chronicle]

AND FINALLY …

When officials closed down a cockfighting operation in a Queens storefront over the weekend, they made arrests and confiscated scores of roosters.

But somehow, the officials overlooked one animal.

Outside the storefront’s back entrance on Monday, a reporter discovered a large aquatic turtle, apparently a red-eared slider, abandoned in the snow.

Chilly, stunned, but alive. See photo.

We are now taking care of him (or her?) and preparing to turn the turtle over to the folks at the New York Turtle and Tortoise Society.

But meanwhile, some help is needed: Can you suggest a name for our new turtle friend?

Let us know in the comments or on Twitter, with #nytoday. Thanks.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting; Sarah Maslin Nir has the turtle.

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