The City of Comrades

In the slow swirl of Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park two seedy sinister individuals could hold an exceedingly private conversation without drawing attention to themselves. There were others like us on the scene in that month of June 1913 cast up from the obscurest depths of New York. We could revolve there for five or ten minutes in company with other elements of the city’s life to be eliminated by degrees sucked into other currents forming new combinations or reacting to the old ones.