So I’ve somehow been transported to the Soul of New York City. How was your morning?
Visiting the soul of a city might sound like a romantic, fantastic, fairy tale kinda thing to do, and I guess it can be. But the soul of a city is not a safe place to be. That’s any city, but especially one with as much darkness in its past as the Big Apple. Sure you might run into Fiorello LaGuardia or take a bus ride with Ralph Kramden, but you might also run into the Son of Sam. And I don’t mean that pudgy loser David Berkowitz, but the looming, shadowy figure who terrorized all of NYC for one long hot summer. You might find yourself in Times Square for the Golden Age of Broadway, or in the Bronx when it’s literally on fire.
God help you if you wander into the Five Points and meet Bill the Butcher.
I’ve come here before, but I’ve always come prepared. This time I just got hijacked. I need to get out of here, and fast. But to do that, I need to figure out who – or what – brought me here, and why.
I’d like to look at a stock ticker – either a Bloomberg Terminal or one of those old-fashioned ones with a glass dome and a long ribbon of paper would do. A quick divination would straighten this right out. But I can’t get into my office, and it’s a long way to Wall Street.
I need an oracle. So I look around and find one.
That easy? Oh yes. There’s oracles all over New York. They’re called newsstands.
This one looks like it came straight out of an old black-and-white movie about the City. Little green building covered with papers and magazines, fat guy standing out front wearing an apron and one of those change-making belts, chewing a stogie, and wearing one of those newsboy caps over his thinning white hair.
I take out a twenty and dip it in the ley line. If I just wanted a paper I could just flip him a quarter, though that risks getting a paper from 1955. What I need is an oracle.
I hand the newsman the twenty and his eyes glow for a moment. I don’t ask him for a paper; he’ll know what I need. He grunts and hands me a Wall Street Journal. I flip it open to the financial section and get stock reporting from…1871? Something about real estate and property values on 36th street?
Then I get it, and I say some things that I can’t repeat in a family newspaper.
Oh, hell. Boss Tweed.