New York City, August 9, 2017

★★★★ A little haze floated above the bright and warm morning, to keep expectations from going completely wild. By the middle of the day, though, the facts were in. People lingered against the buildings, working their phones. Bicycles and pedestrians were going in all directions, at all speeds. Grill smoke rose from a trailer parked on a corner by Broadway. A vendor sold mango from a wheeled shopping basket; a mailman in a uniform t-shirt at an ice cream cone on the sidewalk, standing beside his mail cart. The air in the shade of the cross streets was simultaneously warming and bracing. Trumpet vines swung in the wake of a passing U-Haul.