New York City, November 16, 2014

★ The clouds were a gray ceiling on the day’s potential. What people were on the streets were in drab and puffy clothes; the light on the buildings was flat, and the leaves, finally turning various colors, were dull versions of those colors. A white-haired man carried a snowboard under his arm, a few doors down from a tanning parlor. The air reddened the seven-year-old’s face. The sidewalk retail tables on Broadway were battened down with plastic sheeting and untended.