24 July 2005
5:44 pm to 6:44 pm
Heads: 50
Tails: 57
Total intersections: 35
Ending point: corner of Greenwich St. and Rector St.
Latitude/longitude: 40:42.28.67N/74:00.48.95W
Distance from home: 0.2864 miles
Literature received: None
Coin: 1980 nickel (P)

On a Sunday, Broadway was choked with tourists, but when I turned onto the side streets of the financial district, they were spookily quiet. I drifted east in lazy random circles.

I noticed people: the bored security guards, the black-clad bicyclist laboring his way up a hill, the man with a sunburn and a ponytail, and his daughter wearing a T-shirt with the message “I DIDN’T FORGET.”

Overheard snatch of conversation: “frightened and/or horrified.”

After half an hour, I came back to Broadway and found a dozen tourists clamoring around a T-shirt vendor. Steam billowed over subway grates. In the summer heat, everything felt like it was sticky and in slow-motion. A plane overhead looked like it was floating away, like a child’s balloon.