1. New York is a city of things unnoticed. It is a city with cats sleeping under parked cars, two stone armadillos crawling up St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and thousands of ants creeping on top of the Empire State Building. The ants probably were carried there by winds or birds, but nobody is sure; nobody in New York knows any more about the ants than they do about the panhandler who takes taxis to the Bowery; or the dapper man who picks trash out of Sixth Avenue trash cans; or the medium in the West Seventies who claims, ‘I’m clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsensuous.’aaaaa

纽约拥有众多不为人注意的事物。在这个城市有猫睡在停泊的车下，两只犰狳攀上圣帕特里克教堂，还有成千的蚂蚁爬上帝国大厦的楼顶。那些蚂蚁或许是被风或者鸟带上去的，可谁也说不准。在纽约没有人了解蚂蚁，就像他们不知道那个乞丐去保利 区乞讨时乘的是出租车；还有那个衣冠楚楚的家伙专门在第 6 大街从垃圾筒里捡垃圾；还有西 70 街的那位灵媒宣称：“我无所不见、无所不闻、无所不觉。”

2. New York is a city for eccentrics and a center for odd bits of information. New Yorkers blink twenty-eight times a minute, but forty when tense. Most popcorn chewers at Yankee Stadium stop chewing momentarily just before the pitch. Gumchewers on Macy's escalators stop chewing momentarily just before they, get off —— to concentrate on the last step. Coins, paper clips, ball-point pens, and little girls' pocketbooks are found by work-men when they clean the sea lions' pool at the Bronx Zoo.

纽约是一个古怪者的天堂，是奇事异闻的中心。纽约人每分钟眨 28 次眼睛，但在感到紧张时则眨 40 次。在扬基体育馆， 嚼爆米花的观众们在投球前大多会暂时停止咀嚼。在美茜百货店的自动扶梯上，吃口香糖的人们也会在下最后一级时暂时停止 咀嚼。布朗克斯动物园的工人们在清理海狮池则捞出硬币、回形针、圆珠笔和小姑娘的小皮夹。

3. A Park Avenue doorman has parts of three bullets in his head —— there since World War I. Several young gypsy daughters, influenced by television and literacy, are running away from home because they don't want to grow up and become fortune-tellers. Each month a hundred pounds of hair are delivered to Louis Feder on 545 Fifth Avenue, where blond hairpieces are made from German women's hair; brunette hairpieces from Italian women's hair; but no hairpieces from American women's hair which, says Mr. Feder, is weak from too frequent rinses and permanents.

帕克街一位门房的脑袋里有 3 颗子弹的碎片——它们从第一次世界大战起就留在那里了。还有几个年轻的吉普赛人的女儿 受了电视和文化的影响，她们生怕长大，生怕会变成算命的，于是离家出走。每个月，有 100 磅头发运到第五大街 545 号的路 易斯·费达的店里。在那儿，德国女人的头发用来做金色假发，意大利女人的头发用来做棕色假发。但是，从来不用美国女人的头发做假发，因为费达先生说，美国女人洗头太勤，烫发太多，因此发质太弱。

4. Some of New York's best informed men are elevator operators, who rarely talk, but always Listen —— like doormen. Sardi's doormen listen to the comments made by Broadway's first-nighters walking by after the last act. They listen closely. They listen carefully. Within ten minutes they can tell you which shows will flop and which will be hits.

在纽约，消息最灵通的要算电梯操作工了。和门房一样，他们说话不多，但时常注意听。每当百老汇某场戏剧的首演结束，莎尔蒂剧院的门房就会聆听散场观众路过时的对话。他们听得很关注，听得很仔细。十分钟内他们就能告诉你哪出戏会失败， 哪出戏将走红。

5. On Broadway each evening a big, dark, 1948 Rolls-Royce pulls into Forty-sixth Street —— and out hop two little ladies armed with Bibles and signs reading, "The Damned Shall Perish." These ladies proceed to stand on the corner screaming at the multitudes of Broadway sinners, sometimes until three a.m., when their chauffeur in the Rolls picks them up and drives them back to Westchester.

在百老汇， 每天傍晚都会有一辆黑色的 1948 年的大劳斯劳埃斯轿车开进第 56 街——从车里跳出来两位小个子女士， 手持《圣经》和标语，标语上写着：“遭神咒的必亡。”两位女士接着站在街角，朝着百老汇的芸芸罪人们叫喊，有时直到凌晨 3 点。 这时司机会开着那辆劳斯劳埃斯来接她们，将她们送回威斯切斯特。

6. By this time Fifth Avenue is deserted by all but a few strolling insomniacs, some cruising cabdrivers, and a group of sophisticated females who stand in store windows all night and day wearing cold, perfect smiles. Like sentries they line Fifth Avenue —— these window mannequins who gaze onto the quiet street with tilted heads and pointed toes and long rubber fingers reaching for cigarettes that aren't there.

此时，第 5 大街已是了无人迹．只有几个失眠的人在闲逛，和几辆出租车在游弋。还有一些神情肃然的女性，整天整夜肃立在商店橱窗内，脸上挂着冷漠、完美的笑容。她们像哨兵似的，沿着第 5 大街排列着——这些橱窗模特儿，凝视着静谧的街头，搔首弄姿。她们有着修长的脚趾，长长的橡皮手指向前伸着，仿佛想接那根本不存在的香烟。

7. At five a.m., Manhattan is a town of tired trumpet players and homeward-bound bartenders. Pigeons control Park Avenue and strut unchallenged in the middle of the street. This is Manhattan's mellowest hour. Most night people are out of sight —— but the day people have not yet appeared. Truck drivers and cabs are alert, yet they do not disturb the mood. They do not disturb the abandoned Rockefeller Center, or the motionless night watchmen in the Fulton Fish Market, or the gas-station attendant sleeping next to Sloppy Louie's with the radio on.

早上 5 点，曼哈顿属于那些疲惫的小号吹奏手和回家的酒吧侍应。鸽子占据了帕克大街。它们走在马路的中央，如入无人之境。这是曼哈顿最美好的时刻。过夜生活的人大多已经销声匿迹——而白天工作的人则尚未出门。卡车和出租车司机们保持着警觉，但他们并不惊扰此时的气氛。他们不惊扰寂寥的洛克菲勒中心，以及福尔顿鱼市场那一动不动的看门人，以及开着收音机，自己倚在斯洛比·路易快餐店边上睡着了的加油站服务员。

8. At five a.m., the Broadway regulars either have gone home or to all-night coffee shops where, under the glaring light, you see their whiskers and wear. And on Fifty-first Street a radio press car is parked at the curb with a photographer who has nothing to do. So he just sits there for a few nights, looks through the windshield and soon becomes a keen observer of life after midnight.

早上 5 点，百老汇的常客们不是回家了，就是在通宵咖啡馆里。在咖啡馆眩目的灯光下，看得见男人的胡须和女人的脂粉。 在第 5 大街，一辆无线电采访车停在路边。车内的摄影记者百无聊赖。他只是连着几夜坐在车内，望着挡风玻璃外的一切。很快，他饶有兴味地观察起午夜后的夜生活来。

9. "At one a.m." he says, "Broadway is filled with wise guys and with kids coming out of the Astor Hotel in white dinner jackets —— kids who drive to dances in their fathers' cars. You also see cleaning ladies going home, always wearing kerchiefs. By two a.m. some of the drinkers are getting out of hand, and this is the hour for bar fights. At three a.m. the last show is over, in the nightclubs, and most of the tourists and out-of-town buyers are back in hotels. And small-time comedians are criticizing big-time comedians in Hanson's Drugstore. At four a.m., after the bars close, you see the drunks come out —— and also the pimps and prostitutes, who take advantage of drunks. At five a.m., though, it is mostly quiet. New York is an entirely different city at five a.m."

“早上 1 点，”他说，“百老汇到处是些聪明人，还有不少小伙子穿着白色的礼服从埃斯特宾馆出来——这些小伙子是开着父亲的车来跳舞的。你还可以看见回家的清洁女工，她们总是头戴头巾。到 2 点时，有些饮酒的人开始失去控制。这是酒吧 殴斗的时刻。3 点，夜总会最后一场演出结束了。这时，大多数游客以及外地来的购物者们已经回到了酒店里。在汉森药房里， 默默无闻的喜剧演员会对喜剧明星们大加抨击。4 点，酒吧打烊了，你看得见醉汉们走出来，还有拉皮条的和妓女们占醉汉的便宜。然而，到了早上 5 点，一切大多静寂下来。凌晨 5 点的纽约成了一个完全不同的城市。

10. At six a.m., the early workers begin to push up from the subways. The traffic begins to move down Broadway like a river. And Mrs. Mary Woody jumps out of bed, dashes to her office and phones dozens of sleepy New Yorkers to say in a cheerful voice, rarely appreciated: "Good morning. Time to get up." For twenty years, as an operator of Western Union's Wake-Up Service, Mrs. Woody has gotten millions out of bed.

早上 6 点，早起的工人们开始从地铁里拥挤着走上来。车辆人群如河流般流淌在百老汇。而玛丽·伍迪太太则从床上跳起来，冲进办公室，给几十位睡意朦胧的纽约人打电话。她那欢快的嗓音很少得到人们的赞赏：“早上好。该起床啦。”二十年来，伍迪太太是西部联合电信公司唤醒服务的服务员。她已经将几百万人叫醒起床。

11. By seven a.m., a floridly robust little man, looking very Parisian in a blue beret and turtleneck sweater, moves in a hurried step along Park Avenue visiting his wealthy lady friends —— making certain that each is given a brisk, before-breakfast rubdown. The uniformed doormen greet him warmly and call him either "Biz" or "Mac" because he is Biz Mackey, a ladies' masseur extraordinaire. He never reveals the names of his customers, but most of them are middle-aged and rich. He visits each of them in their apartments, and has special keys to their bedrooms; he is often the first man they see in the morning, and they lie in bed waiting for him.

早晨 7 点，一个穿着花哨、身材敦实的小个子男人步履匆忙地走在帕克大街上。他戴一顶蓝色贝雷帽，穿一件高领毛线衣， 看起来像个巴黎人。他正赶去造访那几位有钱的女性友人——他保证每一位都能在早餐前轻快地接受一次按摩。身着制服的门房们热情地向他打招呼。他们要么管他叫“比兹”，要么叫“麦克”，因为他的名字是比兹·麦凯，是一位专为女性按摩的按摩师。他从不透露客户的姓名。她们大多是些有钱的中年女性。他逐一来到她们的寓所中。他有特殊的钥匙，能够进入她们的卧室。他常常是她们早上见的第一个男人。她们就躺在床上，等着他。

12. The doormen that Biz passes each morning are generally an obliging, endlessly articulate group of sidewalk diplomats who list among their friends some of Manhattan's most powerful men, most beautiful women and snootiest poodles. More often than not, the doormen are big, slightly Gothic in design, and the possessors of eyes sharp enough to spot big tippers a block away in the year's thickest fog. Some East Side doormen are as proud as grandees, and their uniforms, heavily festooned, seem to come from the same tailor who outfitted Marshal Tito.

比兹每天早上走过的那些门房，通常是一群彬彬有礼、滔滔不绝的人。他们是门口路边的外交家。曼哈顿最有势力的男人、 最漂亮的女人，还有最势利的哈巴狗都被他们视作朋友。门房常常个子高高的，举止显得有点哥特式风格。他们有一双敏锐的眼睛，能够透过一年中最浓的雾，看到远在一个街区以外的地方谁给小费最阔绰。一些西区的门房就像西班牙大公一样倨傲， 而他们的制服缀满花饰，简直就好像是为 铁托元帅 制衣的同一个裁缝制作的。

13. Shortly after seven-thirty each morning hundreds of people are lined along Forty-second Street waiting for the eight a.m. opening of the ten movie houses that stand almost shoulder-to-shoulder between Times Square and Eighth Avenue. Who are these people who go to the movies at eight a.m.? They are the city's insomniacs, night watchmen, and people who can't go home, do not want to go home, or have no home. They are derelicts, homosexuals, cops, hacks, truck drivers, cleaning ladies and restaurant men who have worked all night. They are also alcoholics who are waiting at eight a.m. to pay forty cents for a soft seat and to sleep in the dark smoky theatre. And yet, aside from being smoky, each of the Times Square's theatres has a special quality, or lack of quality, about it. At the Victory Theatre one finds horror films, while at the Times Square Theatre they feature only cowboy films. There are first-run films for forty cents at the Lyric, while at the Selwyn there are always second-run films for thirty cents. But if you go to the Apollo Theatre you will see, in addition to foreign films, people in the lobby talking with their hands. These are deaf-and-dumb movie fans who patronize the Apollo because they read the subtitles. The Apollo probably has the biggest deaf-and-dumb movie audience in the world.

7 点半才过一会儿，几百个人就在 42 街排着队，等候 8 点钟电影院开门。在时代广场和第 8 大街之间，10 家电影院几乎比肩接踵地排列着。这些 8 点钟就去看电影的是什么人呢？他们是这个城市中失眠的人、夜间值班工，还有那些不能回家、不想回家，或者无家可归的人。他们中有整夜干活的穷人、同性恋者、警察、出租车司机、卡车司机、清洁女工和餐馆工人。其中还有酗酒者，他们到 8 点就等着，付 4 毛钱，换一个柔软的座位，在暗暗的烟雾腾腾的电影院里睡上一觉。但是，除了烟雾缭绕之外，时代广场的剧院还有一大特质，或者，也可以说它们没有特质。在胜利剧院，人们可以看恐怖片，而在时代广场剧院则只上映牛仔片。莱利克影院花 4 毛钱可以看首映片，而在赛而温影院总是放映旧片，票价 3 毛。如果到阿波罗剧院，那么， 除了外国电影外，你还能看到大厅里用手说话的人们。这些是聋哑的影迷，他们常来阿波罗剧院，因为在这里他们可以看电影字幕。阿波罗剧院可能拥有世界上最多的聋哑电影观众。

14. New York is a city of 38,000 cabdrivers, 10,000 bus drivers, but only one chauffeur who has a chauffeur. The wealthy chauffeur can be seen driving up Fifth Avenue each morning, and his name is Roosevelt Zanders. He earns $100,000 a year, is a gentleman of impeccable taste and, although he owns a $23,000 Rolls-Royce, does not scorn his friends who own Bentleys. For $150 a day, Mr.Zanders will drive anyone anywhere in his big, silver Rolls. Diplomats patronize him, models pose next to him, and each day he receives cables from around the world urging that he be waiting at Idlewild, on the docks, or outside the Plaza Hotel. Sometimes at night, however, he is too tired to drive anymore. So Bob Clarke, his chauffeur, takes over and Mr.Zanders relaxes in the back.

纽约有 38，000 名出租车司机、10，000 名公共汽车司机，还有一位有自己的私人司机的私人司机。每天早上，人们可以看见这位有钱的司机在第 5 大街上驱车。他的名字是罗斯福·赞德斯。他一年挣 10，000 美元，是一位趣味上无可挑剔的绅士。 而且，尽管拥有一辆价值 23，000 美元的劳斯莱斯，可他并不看不起那些开本特利车的朋友们。一天 150 美元，赞德斯先生就能用他那辆银色的大劳斯莱斯车，将任何人送往任何地方。外交官们常常聘请他，模特儿们在他身边搔首弄姿。每天他都接到世界各地发来的电报，要他在爱德华尔德机场、码头，或者广场酒店外等候。但有时，到了晚上，他太累了，开不动车了。于是他的私人司机，鲍伯·克拉克便接手开车，而赞德斯先生则在车后座休息。

15. New York is a town of 3,000 bootblacks whose brushes and rhythmic rag-snaps can be heard up and down Manhattan from midmorning to midnight. They dodge cops, survive rianstorms, and thrive in the Empire State Building as Well as on the Staten Island Ferry. They usually wear dirty shoes.

纽约有 3，000 名擦鞋匠。从上午到午夜，在曼哈顿，四处都能听见他们的鞋刷声和那有节奏的抖拉擦鞋布的声音。他们躲避警察，历经风雨，在帝国大厦以及斯塔顿岛摆渡船上生意兴隆。他们穿的鞋常常是很脏的。

16. New York is a city of headless men who sit obscurely in subway booths all day and night selling tokens to people in a hurry. Each Weekday more than 4,500,000 riders pass these money changers who seem to have neither heads, faces, nor personalities —— only fingers. Except when giving directions, their vocabulary consists largely of three words: “How many, please ?”

纽约有一些看不见脑袋的人。他们隐晦地整天整夜坐在地铁售票处，向行色匆匆的人们出售车票。每个工作日，4，500， 000 名旅客在这些看上去没头、没脸、没有个性、而只看得见手指的换钱者前面走过。除非指路，他们所说的话大多只有 4 个字： “请问几张”

17. In New York there are 200 chestnut vendors, and they average $25 on a good day peddling soft, warm chestnuts. Like many vendors, the chestnut men do not own their own rigs —— they borrow or rent them from pushcart makers such as David Amerman.

在纽约，有 200 名卖炒栗子的商贩。生意好的日子，他们靠叫卖又软又热的栗子，每天能挣 25 美元。和许多沿街商贩一样，这 些卖栗子并不拥有自己的推车——他们的推车是从像戴维·埃默曼那样的制车商那儿借来或租来。

18. Mr. Amerman, with offices opposite a defunct public bath-house on the Lower East Side, is New York's master builder of pushcarts. His father and grandfather before him were push-cart makers, and the family has long been a household word among the city's most discriminating junkmen, fruit vendors and hot-dog peddlers.

埃默曼先生的办公室位于低部东区一所废弃的公共浴室对面。他是纽约的推车制作高手。在他之前，他的父亲和祖父都是推车制造商。在这座城市最为挑剔的捡垃圾的、卖水果和卖热狗的人的心目里，他的家族是一个家喻户晓的名字。

19. In New York there are 500 mediums, ranging from semi-trance to trance to deep--trance types. Most of them live in New York's West Seventies and Eighties, and on Sundays some of these blocks are communicating with the dead, vibrating to trumpets, and solving all problems.

纽约有 500 个灵媒，种类有半附体、附体和深度附体不一。他们大多住在纽约的西 70 街和 80 街。每逢星期天，这里有几个街区便和死者沟通，号声震天动地，所有疑难问题也迎刃而解。

20. The Manhattan Telephone Directory has 776,300 names, of which 3,316 are Smith, 2,835 are Brown, 2,444 are Williams, 2,070 are Cohen —— and one is Mike Krasilovsky. Anyone who doubts this last fact has only to look at the top of page 876, where, in large black letters, is this sign: "There is only one Mike Krasilovsky. Sterling 3-1990."

曼哈顿电话号码簿上有 776，300 个名字，其中有 3，316 个史密斯、2，835 个布朗、2，444 个威廉、2，070 个科恩——另 外还有一个麦克·克拉斯洛夫斯基。如果有人怀疑这最后一点，只要看一看第 876 页页首处，用大号黑体字印出的这句话：“天下只有一个麦克·克拉斯洛夫斯基。斯特林区 3--1990”。

21. In New York the Fifth Avenue Lingerie shop is on Madison Avenue; the Madison Pet Shop is on Lexington Avenue; the Park Avenue Florist is on Madison Avenue, and the Lexington Hand Laundry is on Third Avenue. New York is the home of 120 pawnbrokers and it is where Bishop Sheen's brother, Dr. Sheen, shares an office with one Dr. Bishop.

在纽约，第 5 大街女内衣商店坐落在麦迪逊街，而麦迪逊宠物店位于莱克星顿街；帕克街花店是在麦迪逊街；莱克星顿手洗店则又是在第 3 大街。纽约有 120 家当铺。在纽约，毕晓普·希恩的兄弟，希恩医生和一位毕晓普医生在一个办公室上班。

22. New York is a town of thirty tattooists where interest in mankind is skin-deep, but whose impressions usually last a life-time. Each day the tattooists go pecking away over acres of anatomy. And in downtown Manhattan, Stanley Moskowitz, a scion of a distinguished family of bowery skin-peckers, does a grand business.

纽约有 30 位纹身师。他们对人类的兴趣真是肤浅，但他们在人身上留下的印记却常常印刻一生。每天，纹身师们要纹刻几英亩的人体。在曼哈顿市中心，斯坦利·莫斯科维兹是鲍华利街区纹身世家的一位传人。他的生意十分兴隆。

23. When it rains in Manhattan, automobile traffic is slow, dates are broken and, in hotel lobbies, people slump behind newspapers or walk aimlessly about with no place to sit, nobody to talk to, nothing to do. Taxis are harder to get; department stores do between fifteen and twenty five percent less business, and the monkeys in the Bronx Zoo, having no audience, slouch grumpily in their cages looking more bored than the lobby-loungers.

曼哈顿下雨的日子，汽车的车流变得缓慢，人们还常爽约，而在酒店的大厅里，人们瘫坐着埋头看报，或者毫无目的地走来走去，没地方坐、没人聊天、没事可干。叫出租车也更困难。百货商店的销售额也降低了 15％到 25％。布朗克斯动物园里的猴子没有了观众，也只好闷闷不乐地坐在笼子里，看上去比那些在酒店大厅里闲坐的人还要无聊。

24. While some New Yorkers become morose with rain, others prefer it, like to walk in it, and say that on rainy days the city's buildings seem somehow cleaner —— washed in an opalescence, like a Monet painting. There are fewer suicides in New York when it rains. But when the sun is shining, and New Yorkers seem happy, the depressed person sinks deeper into depression, and Bellevue Hospital gets more suicide calls.

下雨的时候，有的纽约人抑郁寡欢，而有的却喜欢雨天。他们爱在雨中行走。他们说，雨天里城市的楼房变得似乎干净了 ——像一幅莫奈的画作一样，沉浸在一片朦胧之中。下雨时，纽约的自杀事件也减少了。然而在阳光灿烂的日子里，纽约看起来喜气洋洋的。忧郁的人陷入更深的忧郁中，而贝勒佛医院也接到更多报告自杀事件的电话。

25. New York is a town of 8,485 telephone operators, 1,364 Western Union messenger boys, and 112 newspaper copyboys. An average baseball crowd at Yankee Stadium uses over ten gallons of liquid soap per game —— an unofficial high mark for cleanliness in the major leagues; the stadium also has the league's top number of ushers (360), sweepers (72), and men's rooms (34).

纽约有 8，485 名电话接线员，1，364 名西部联合电信公司的送信员，和 112 名报社小工。扬基体育场普通的一场观众每次比赛要用去 10 加仑以上的液体肥皂——这是联赛中一个非正式的干净高记录。在联赛比赛的各个体育场馆中，扬基体育场还拥有最多的检票员(360 名)、清扫工(72 名)和男厕所(34 个)。

26. New York is a town in which the brotherhood of Russian Bath Rubbers, the only union advocating sweatshops, appears to be heading for its last rubdown. The union has been going in New York City for years, but now most of the rubbers are pushing seventy and are deaf —— from all the water and the hot temperatures.

在纽约，俄罗斯澡堂擦背工人兄弟会正在走向结束。这是唯一一个主张流汗苦干的工会。这个兄弟会在纽约历经数年，但是现在大多数擦背工人已年近 70，耳朵也聋了——那是水和高温造成的后果。

27. Each afternoon in New York a rather seedy saxophone player, his cheeks blown out like a spinnaker, stands on the sidewalk playing Danny Boy in such a sad, sensitive way that he soon has half the neighborhood peeking out of windows tossing nickels, dimes and quarters at his feet. Some of the coins roll under parked cars, but most of them are caught in his out-stretched hand. The saxophone player is a street musician named Joe Gabler; for the past thirty years he has serenaded every block in New York and has sometimes been tossed as much as $100 a day in coins. He is also hit with buckets of water, empty beer cans and eggs, and chased by wild dogs. He is believed to be the last of New York's ancient street musicians.

每天下午，在纽约，有一个衣衫褴褛的萨克管吹奏手，两腮鼓得像风帆似的，站在人行道上演奏(男孩但尼)。他吹奏得伤感、动人，以致于半条街的人们都从窗口向外张望，向他脚下扔 5 分、1 毛和 2 毛 5 分的硬币。有的硬币滚到停着的汽车底下， 但大多数都被他伸出的手接住了。这位萨克管吹奏手是一位叫做乔·盖布勒的街头艺人。在过去的 30 年里，他吹遍了纽约的大街小巷。有时人们扔给他的硬币一天就有 100 美元。有时扔向他的也有一桶桶的水、空啤酒罐、鸡蛋，还有野狗追撵他。人们认为，他是纽约早期街头艺人的仅存者。

28. New York is a town of nineteen midget wrestlers. They all can squeeze into the Hotel Holland's elevator, six can sleep in one bed, eight can be comfortably transported to Madison Square Garden in the chauffeur-driven Cadillac reserved for the midget wrestlers.

纽约有 19 名侏儒摔跤手。他们能够一起挤进荷兰酒店的电梯。6 个人可以一起睡一张床，8 个人可以舒舒服服地乘车到麦迪逊广场花园。那车是一辆由专人驾驶的凯迪拉克，是这些侏儒摔跤手的专车。

29. In New York from dawn to dusk to dawn, day after day, you can hear the steady rumble of tires against the concrete span of George Washington Bridge. The bridge is never completely still. It trembles with traffic. It moves in the wind. Its great veins of steel swell when hot and contract when cold; its span often is ten feet closer to the Hudson River in summer than in winter. It is an almost restless structure of graceful beauty which, like an irresistible seductress, withholds secrets from the romantics who gaze upon it, the escapists who jump off it, the chubby girl who lumbers across its 3,500-foot span trying to reduce, and the 100,000 motorists who each day cross it, smash into it, shortchange it, get jammed up on it.

在纽约，从凌晨到傍晚再到早晨，你可以不断听见乔治·华盛顿桥上车轮在水泥桥面上沉闷的声音。那座桥从来没有完全静止的时候。它随着车水马龙而震颤，在风中摇动。它那巨大的钢筋遇热膨胀、遇冷收缩。在夏天，它的桥身比在冬天要更加 接近哈德逊河 10 英尺。这是一座优雅、美丽、几乎永无止歇的建筑。它像一位诱人的女子，令人难以抗拒。浪漫的人凝视它， 可它却保留着自己的秘密。sm厌世者从桥上跳下。胖乎乎的女孩子为了减肥，在那 3，500 英尺长的桥面上笨重地跑步。还有 100， 000 名驾车人每天从桥上经过，有的撞上桥，有的逃交过桥费，还有的被堵在桥上。

30. When street traffic dwindles and most people are sleeping in New York, some neighborhoods begin to crawl with cats. They move quickly through the shadows of buildings; night watchmen, policemen, garbage collectors and other nocturnal wanderers see them —— but never for long.

当纽约街头的车辆人流减少，大多数人都已入睡，这时有些街道上面便开始爬满了猫。它们在楼房的暗影里飞快地穿过。 夜间值班员、警察、拾垃圾的人和夜晚游荡的人看得见它们——只一会儿又不见了。

31. There are 200,000 stray cats in New York. A majority of them hang around the fish market, or in Greenwich Village, and in the East and West Side neighborhoods where garbage cans abound. No part of the city is without its strays, however, and all-night garage attendants in such busy neighborhoods as Fifty-fourth Street have counted as many as twenty of them around the Ziegfeld Theatre early in the morning. Troops of cats patrol the waterfront piers at night searching for rats. Subway trackwalkers have discovered cats living in the darkness. They seem never to get hit by trains, though some are occasionally liquidated by the third rail. About twenty-five cats live seventy-five feet below the west end of Grand Central Terminal, are fed by the underground workers, and never wander up into the daylight.

纽约有 200，000 只野猫。大多数野猫游荡在鱼市场、格林威治村，还有东区和西区一些垃圾桶较多的街道。城市里任何一个地方都有无主的动物，可是在像 54 大街这样繁忙的街区，车库值夜工却在一大早，在齐格非尔德剧院附近看见过多达 20 只 野猫。晚上，野猫们成群结队，在水边码头搜寻老鼠。地铁检道工发现，有猫生活在黑暗的隧道里。它们似乎从来不会被列车撞上，尽管有些猫有时会被第三电轨电击身死。在大中央车站西头地底 72 英尺的隧道里，生活着 25 只猫。地铁工人喂食它们。 这些猫从不跑到地上去。

32. New York is a city in which large, cliff-dwelling hawks cling to skyscrapers and occasionally zoom to snatch a pigeon over Central Park, or Wall Street, or the Hudson River. Bird watchers have seen these peregrine falcons circling lazily over the city. They have seen them perched atop tall buildings, even around Times Square. About twelve of these hawks patrol the city, sometimes with a wingspan of thirty-five inches. They have buzzed women on the roof of the St. Regis Hotel, have attacked repairmen on smokestacks and, in August, 1947, two hawks jumped women residents in the recreation yard of the Home of the New York Guild for the Jewish Blind. Maintenance men at the Riverside Church have seen hawks dining on pigeons in the bell tower. The hawks remain there for only a little while. And then they fly out to the river, leaving pigeons' heads for the Riverside maintenance men to clean up. When the hawks return, they fly in quietly —— unnoticed, like the cats, the headless men, the ants, the ladies' masseur, the doorman with three bullets in his head, and most of the other offbeat wonders in this town without time.

在纽约这座城市，有一些巨大崖居山鹰。它们住在摩天大楼上。有时，在中央公园、在华尔街、在哈德逊河，它们会俯冲而下，捕攫鸽子。鸟类观察爱好者们看到过这些迁徙到城里的老鹰倦慵地在城市上空盘旋。他们看见它们停歇在高楼楼顶上， 甚至还停在时代广场附近。大约有 12 只这样的老鹰在这座城市飞来飞去。有的老鹰翼长达 35 英寸。它们曾经俯冲下来，惊吓圣雷吉斯宾馆房顶上的妇女。它们袭击过修烟囱的工人。1947 年 8 月，在纽约犹太盲人会疗养所的娱乐园里，两只老鹰把在那儿的女性疗养者们吓了一大跳。河畔教堂的修理工人看见过老鹰在钟塔里吃鸽子。老鹰只在那儿呆了一会儿。然后它们就飞到河上去，残留下几只鸽子脑袋让河畔教堂的修理工们打扫。老鹰回来时，它们悄然而来——不为人注目，就像那些猫、那些看不见脑袋的人、那些蚂蚁、贵妇按摩师、脑袋里面留着 3 颗子弹的门房，还有其他许多稀奇古怪的奇观，在这座城市里，永恒无尽。

New York 原文及译文