OK, this time I'm blogging under definitely sub-standard conditions in a less than impressive internet cafe on Broadway downtown. I won't go further than that, and I'll keep it short and sweet.
My question to you, friends, is this: how many yellow cabs are there in New York City? I don't know the answer myself but yesterday, round Times Square and on West 42 and down at the New York Public Library, I got to thinking there must be fleets of them, in ranks of thousands and thousands, and more thousands, parked somewhere in great open fields or giant underground car parks. From the top of the Empire State Building I counted 96 yellow cabs crossing the junction of Fifth Avenue and (I think) West 36th Street during an exact five-minute period. And, don't ask me why, but I just love those cabs. As Sarah (of whom more in due course) said, it's the New Yorkness of them.
Sharp readers will have figured out by now that at some point yesterday I was on top of the Empire State Building. You want I shouldn't do, or should dissemble about doing, the predictable tourist thing? Forget about it. I went up there, and I looked down east, west, north and south, and my eyes they did behold one of the true wonders of the world. A towering, teeming, vital, thrilling place.