Tourists, like buzzards, flock to Wall Street each day. I suppose I'm one of the dead working souls whose patience they feed on.

It's really not so bad on the morning commute. Only the early birds are out. Leaving work, though, I'm battered as I try to get to the subway. Tourists stab the natives as they strike poses beside anything stationary. Human pile-ups occur at a single inopportune fluttering open of a map.

The area really isn't so special. It's one of the centers of our failing economy, but it pays my bills.