Hurricane Irene's Taped-Up Windows in N.Y.C. Remain After 9 Months When Amy Sedaris sees the X, she becomes sad. "I just imagine what their apartments must look like," she said. Ms. Sedaris, the comedian, actress, West Village resident and self-styled Martha Stewart of the harried and downtrodden, was talking about a citywide scourge that has lingered in plain sight for nearly a year: X's and asterisks of tape affixed to windows as Hurricane Irene bore down on New York City last August. While Irene petered out to a tropical storm by the time it made landfall in the city - the National Weather Service does not have a single report on file of a window blown out - the X's endure, in Williamsburg and Jackson Heights, on the Lower East Side and in Bushwick and elsewhere, a stirring testament to the forces of civil preparedness and inertia. Strolls through 11 neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens in recent weeks turned up scores of windows similarly decorated, and in every case where a resident or neighbor was interviewed, that person said the tape had been placed in anticipation of the storm. Not that it made a bit of difference. "It is a waste of effort, time and tape," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offers in answer to the frequently asked question, "Should I tape my windows when a hurricane threatens?" "It offers little strength to the glass and NO protection against flying debris," the weather agency writes, adding, somewhat presciently, "After the storm passes, you will spend many a hot summer afternoon trying to scrape the old, baked-on tape off your windows (assuming they weren't shattered)." Unless, of course, you cannot be bothered. "I'm just lazy," said Christopher, 27, an actor who shares a chaotic one-bedroom railroad apartment with two roommates on Meserole Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. In his bedroom, where a full-size mattress takes up most of the floor and mountains of laundry might be mistaken for furniture, an X of blue painter's tape blocks the view out of his only window. Christopher, who would not give his last name, said last week that while his roommates had removed the tape from the apartment's five other windows the morning after Irene went through the area on Aug. 28, he passed. Besides, he said, the windows seemed so flimsy, "I figured they could fall apart at any minute and I might as well just leave it on." Flimsy window or fancy, a wide X of tape adds a hard-to-miss accent. In an 1830s town house on Second Avenue in the East Village, in a room used by the Women's Prison Association to house former inmates, panes of glass in a pair of original six-over-six double-hung windows were also marked with X's in painter's tape. Alexandra Villano, director of strategic operations for the organization, said, "The tape was just never taken down." In Williamsburg, Robert Hildalgo, 40, was leaving his apartment on Grand Street dressed to the nines with his mother and school-age daughter on a recent Sunday morning. He was asked about his building, where all three floors have their windows taped, giving the appearance of a game of tick-tack-toe where O never got a chance. "It's not like we're waiting around for another one," Mr. Hidalgo said as he gazed up at the white tape across his living room and bedroom windows. We used that really strong tape, and it's been really difficult to get off. Sheila Delson, a professional organizer with nearly 20 years" experience in New York, said she believed that increased stress in day-to-day living and time-wasters, like Facebook, begot during the digital revolution distracted people from basic principles of home maintenance. "Taking care of the cave, so to speak, although it's important, just pales," she said, "as opposed to everything else about survival." But New Yorkers say they are getting around to it. On Graham Avenue in Williamsburg, a barista who out of embarrassment would not give her name told a reporter in March that the three white X's on her windows were not long for this world. "I finally pulled out my Goo-Be-Gone this week and I'm going to be Gooin" and Be-Gonin,"" she said. A walk by her apartment last week showed the X's still intact. Note to her and the others: The Atlantic hurricane season begins Friday.