NYC 2.0

The missus and I just returned from a visit to New York City, about which I'll be writing for the next few days. For those who insist on the skinny up front: our trip was great, and we'll be back soon.

It is a trite but true observation that New York is a fabulous city. It's equally obvious that it's a city with a few flaws and that it is much in need of an upgrade. My suggestions for version 2.0 of NYC:

1) Tear out everyone's heating system and start over. There is probably some heat somewhere in NYC that isn't either (a)ridiculously hot or (b)off, but we never encountered it. What we encountered was good old 19th-century radiator heat, the type you might appreciate in a sauna but not in, say, a fancy restaurant, or your bedroom. Our visit was all about dry sinuses and stinky pits, with occasional bouts of the shivers at 3 AM, when we would awake to realize that the oppressive heat had disappeared and an Arctic chill had taken its place.

2) Build more bathrooms. Yes, I know this situation is much better now than it was 20 years ago, because now there's a Barnes & Nobles or Starbucks every ten feet. Still, the ratio of toilets to people in the city is unnatural and unhealthy. By necessity, lots of people are walking around needing to go, but with no place to go in. It is my current working theory that this is why many New Yorkers are so cranky. There is an especial need for more toilets in apartments; where we stayed, 6 people shared a single toilet. I believe this is a felony violation of the building codes in North Carolina.

3) Since suggestion 2 is a pipedream, at least add something to the water that makes pee smell better. Even in this post-Giuliani, suddenly tenament-less, very upscale city, people apparently pee everywhere. You never see them doing it, but you sure know where they did it later, because NYC smells of baked whizz. Even in the wintertime, amazingly. This is probably a function of the paucity of toilets. If adding something to the water is impractical, perhaps the city could rebuild its sidewalks from the material used to make urinal cakes.

And that's about it. Otherwise, New York City's perfect just as it is.