"Maybe New York will emerge as something new, just as St. Marks has every
10 or 15 years. That's kind of the whole deal. It probably won't be
that new, though. And it certainly won't be dead. This is not an old
city by the standards of the wider world, but it's old enough that
believing a single plague would break its back forever verges on human
delusion."
Jack Holmes, Esquire
