7 February 2005
10:52 am to 11:52 am
Heads: 52
Tails: 49
Total intersections: 71
Ending point: corner of Stone Street and Hanover Place
Latitude/longitude: 40:42:17.16N/74:00:34.90W
Distance from home: 0.3507 miles
Literature received: Celebrate New York (“A new multimedia experiences that explores the spirit and resiliency of this great city”)
Coin: 2002 Czech Republic 20-krona piece

I went down Broadway, then zoomed east down Wall Street. I overheard one businessman speaking to another, in a friendly tone of voice (perhaps recounting another conversation?): “Without my money, you ain’t got shit.”

I circled around lower Manhattan, and came back by the Stock Exchange, which had replaced its oversized flag with a collection of twinkly lights forming an electronic simulated (but equally enormous) flag.

Two maintenance workers on a smoke break were discussing the previous day’s sporting event. “His first Super Bowl, he was kind of nervous,” one said, presumably talking about Donovan McNabb.

I passed by Bowling Green and went west of Broadway, where one deli storefront was advertising “Fish and Grits.”

I returned to Broadway, circled around some more, and then headed south, ending on Stone Street, which is an old-fashioned cobblestone avenue. When Jen and I first moved to the neighborhood, we went walking one evening and stumbled on this street, which looked like it hadn’t changed in a century or two. The more we looked, the more nineteenth-century details we found, including an apothecary and posters for a steamboat excursion up the Hudson. Had we stumbled onto the local equivalent of Colonial Williamsburg? No, it was dressed up as a set for the Meg Ryan/Hugh Jackman time-travel movie Kate & Leopold, and abandoned for the weekend.