New York City, December 6, 2012

★★★ Cold seeped through the window glass and blasted through the open doorway of the apartment lobby. To the south, out on Amsterdam, the sun covered the avenue with a white shine. A cab had pulled over at an angle, beside a parked silver Mercedes, and the Mercedes driver was getting jumper cables out of his trunk. On Broadway, a vendor was selling hats with animal faces on them and scarves or shawls, the lightweight kind that used to be a luxury item. Downtown, a half-foot-thick facade threw a four-foot-long shadow on the adjoining building. At night, a walk/don’t walk sign had something stuck inside it, the way that seems to happen in winter, so the orange hand and the white person stayed lit up together.