Life with Cars.

New York City. Vital. Vivacious. Brave. Artistic. Diverse. Brooding, bustling, bursting with life. And stopped. Dead.

I was born in New York, got my first car-mag job there, lived there, navigated the teeming streets-on foot, in cabs and behind many a steering wheel. I gave no quarter; no cabbie could outbrake me at a traffic signal or outdive me for a hole in traffic. Drive ugly, drive free! When you know how to make a caved-in yellow Ford back off you are a king.

Seems hard to believe that was really me, because now I'm back in the Large Apple, wrestling with what I see like some bumpkin fresh off a milking stool. What's happened here, automotively speaking? Where once there was movement, now there is constriction. Where there was constriction there is... zip.

When I emerge from the Javits Center, where I'm attending the New York auto show, I find the real show is on the street. Hoofing it cross-town for an off-site meeting, it's a breeze crossing Ninth Avenue against the light. All real New Yorkers cross against the light. Dare the rolling death! But what's this? No cars to dodge, no taxis bearing down.

Two blocks upstream, traffic is dammed up by a line of vehicles packed into the intersection, all trying to get across at the same time. Textbook gridlock. As I traipse all over the city the scene is repeated. On wide avenues, on narrow side streets. Big trucks parallel ...