Is a rule of thumb a stereotype? The length of a New York City block depends on which way you are travelling. To go from the southern edge Central Park to the intesection of Broadway and 7th Avenue you travel 14 blocks and, according to conventional wisdom, more than a mile. Turn left and go to Second Avenue, nearly the same geographic distance, but crossing 5 streets, 5 city blocks. And then you will have walked just over a mile and a half among the aggressive side walkers, everyone in black, your life woven around the fenders of brazen cabbies, your pockets stripped clean and your eyes heavy with the city that never sleeps.
Am I making sense? The difference between the vertical journey and the horizontal one, rapid ascendency and slow growth, one life and another.
