Land of Sunless Wind Tunnels

I moved to New York two years ago after working on the Kerry campaign. We lost, my "boyfriend" at the time suggested I "hang out" for a while and see New York. Rich is a pretty dead serious guy and he advised me to watch the PBS 14 hour documentary on New York City. Now, I appreciate his interest in my edification about my new city (especially since I never planned nor aspired to live here), but I could only ever make it through one hour of the two hour episodes before I fell asleep like a little baby.

I learned a lot and I think of the documentary often when I'm walking through the city. Things like the original name for Manhattan: Mannahatta; where the sale and purchase of the island was made; the wonders and miracle of Central park and the grid city plan above 14th St. Then there's Boss Tweed, Cooper Union and all the other political history that's given structure to the national political landscape (especially Abe Lincoln's speech at Cooper Union, coming in as an unknown) as well as the continued corrupt political landscape of New York politics...

When plans for Manhattan were being discussed, there was one insightful soul who said that the proposed sky scrapers would make this land one of sunless wind tunnels. And that's my entire point. By 2pm the sun only hits the tops of 10 story buildings and the windchill going east is sometimes different than the windchill going north.

It begs the question: why do 8 million people stay? My only answer is that it's because it's a sunless wind tunnel.

Makes a TON of sense, right?