Heading uptown on 3rd avenue last night, traffic is unusually heavy and our cab driver gets all worked up. Something is obviously going on. He's yelling across the way to other cab drivers to find out what: this is information exchange, old school, which also means that most of the time there is no information here, only the ritual exchange of good-natured insults. A driver from Bangalore insults the Sudan. Our Sudanese driver, in return, launches a salvo that ends with "go clean your heart." We're laughing in the back without knowing why.
Eventually the information comes through. Obama's supposedly in the Waldorf Astoria, they've blocked off 42nd street. So we get out and walk the last 20 or so blocks along deserted 3rd ave.
Between our president blocking off east side traffic, and our mayor blocking off west side traffic (see the Times Square Pedestrian Mall experiment) they've damn near partitioned the city.