Another day of Wall Street in the (self-imposed) bunker

A view of the New York Stock Exchange from the steps of Federal Hall under "normal" post-9/11 security conditions, except with abnormally few people: You see where all those people are walking, on Wall Street (foreground) and Broad Street (off to the left)? Not this week, sweetheart!

(1) On Weekday 3 of Wall Street in the (Self-Imposed) Bunker -- with the added hassle of not-necessarily-predictable street blockages presumably owing to the president's UN visit (this morning, for example, en route to some East Side medical appointments, I noticed that the eastbound M34 34th Street crosstown bus turned off onto Second Avenue) -- we're all being herded into these barely-one-abreast corridors created by creative fencing, as protection against . . . well, I have no idea what. I guess the possibility that people might (gas) protest, which apparently we Americans no longer have the right to do, at least not if it's going to inconvenience any Really Important People.

Whereas when it comes to inconveniencing us Less Important People, it's open season.

I note once again the heavy concentration of tourists who make their way daily to Manhattan's Financial District, the most obvious attractions being the diagonally-opposite-cornered Federal Hall and New York Stock Exchange. Around noon, making my way for the first time today to my office (in the building that adjoins the NYSE) on Exchange Place, having discovered earlier in this week of siege that entry to the security compound that is the NYSE buildings is easier from the south side than from the north (i.e., Wall Street), I encountered some charming Asian tourists looking for Wall Street. They were, of course, only one street down from it, but I tried to think how to explain the security blockade they were going to encounter.

The young lady of the couple explained that they just wanted to take a picture. I thought but didn't say, "Just take a picture? Why not just shout, 'I am a spy.'" Of course the place where they really wanted to take their picture was that intersection of Wall and Broad Streets, and I could have sent them up Broad Street. Instead I suggested the much easier walk up William Street, where they would still run into Wall Street, and then see what they were up against in their mad scheme of taking a picture.

Again, I'm counting on all those tourists, domestic and foreign, to spread the word back home what gutless, unprincipled fascist wusses Americans have become. Tell your relatives, tell your friends, tell everyone!

(2) While waiting this morning in the waiting room of the doctor's office, or rather of the suite occupied by four doctors, I was fascinated by the display of magazines arrayed in racks on the wall. I should stipulate that I didn't go up to the racks and see what might have been lying behind the front-most magazine, but I noticed that in this suite of orthopedists' offices (at least I assume that the other doctors are all also orthopedists) the magazines visible were:

* four different issues of Dance magazine,

and one each of --

* Elle Decor,

* Traditional Home, and

* Yale Alumni Magazine.

I wondered endlessly whether this assortment was meant to service the range of these doctors' patients -- 57 percent dance enthusiasts, 29 percent home decorators, and 14 percent Whiffenpoofs? -- or a comparably percentaged composite "profile" of their "typical" patient. Either way, it didn't seem to correspond to any of the patients I saw in my time in the waiting room. I also didn't see anyone as much as look at any of the magazines.

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