Pedestrians Versus Traffic

We finally made it to New York City yesterday night. Through the long car ride and traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel, we reached our apartment. It was my first time experiencing the stand-still New York traffic- horns blaring, pedestrians frantically weaving in and out of the almost-blocked box- since I was a little kid only interested in the empire state building foam headdresses. Whenever we walked by the entrance to central park, the vendors immediately saw us as the tourists; they would wave their flyers in our faces telling us to buy these bags, try a horse drawn carriage tour, eat this soft pretzel or falafel. They identified us as out-of-staters primarily because we didn’t just breeze past them and ignore whatever they were saying. I always smiled politely with a no-thank-you, which created an opening for the others. Walking across the cross walks, one guy hollered at a banged-up blue SUV to keep moving through the green light because obviously they needed to go or they would hold up traffic. The girl behind the wheel shot forward as the light turned red and the man strode forward, muttering under his breath. An elderly couple next to me laughed, but I was probably as freaked out as the driver was. You know it’s bad once the pedestrian starts yelling at the driver to get out of the way.