First Monday of the summer, riding my bike along the East River, encountering two traffic jams: large shiny black cars haphasardly idling on the small driveway by the helipad and air marina, rather unfortunately parked in the bike lane and on the sidewalk. Their counterparts, a menagerie of propeller aircraft – helicopters, hydroplanes, on the water or circling in the air.

That must have been the spot where people who feel that their time is too valuable to be spent in Long Island traffic with the rest of the riff-raff, re-emerge into the city from their weekends recuperating in the Hamptons. I remember some of their ads on my old company’s internal bulletin board, looking to share those absurdly-expensive twice-weekly helicopter rides.

A block away, police was ticketing over bicyclists, presumably for running red lights.

Why does this feel like Russia or China?