I was one of the lucky ones (relatively) - a corporate bus, just  one 3-mile walk in below-freezing weather and two long waits in the cold.  Some people commuted for hours, or walked 10 miles every day to get to work so they wouldn't lose their jobs. And everywhere little mom-and-pop stores that depend on the week before Christmas to make a living, lost money.

I'm not getting into the politics of it, save to say that trying to destroy the economy of a city that has only recently recovered the tourism business it lost after 9/11 is not what unions should be about.

Yesterday the city was quiet.  Very quiet.  Many people take this week between Christmas and New Year off, so the traffic drops off.  The contrast between yesterday (Tuesday) and a week ago (the first day of the strike) was striking.  A week ago, traffic was paralyzed, although the city government and police force did their best to alleviate it.  In the morning, for example, no car was allowed below 96th Street unless it had at least four people in it.  A good idea, and it certainly controlled the traffic in midtown - but created a huge traffic jam above 96th Street.  The driver of my corporate bus told me it took him an hour and 45 minutes to get from 125th Street to 96th Street down Second Avenue (about a mile and a half) -  that was the day I waited an hour for the bus, freezing.

This is high tourist season in New York.  It seemed so unfair to the visitors.  They had planned this great trip to New York for the holiday season.  They would see Rockefeller Center and the famous skating rink, take in a couple of Broadway shows, maybe shop in the famous stores, see the decorated windows of Saks, Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylor and Tiffany, go to museums (and enjoy the magnificent Christmas trees in the Metropolitan and the Museum of Natural History), maybe go to midnight mass at St. Patrick's or enjoy the wonderful Christmas music at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

They could still do some of it, especially if their hotel was convenient.  Like the rest of us, they shared taxis if they could get one, and walked if they couldn't.  Pedicabs were everywhere - while my bus was stuck in frozen traffic, I saw one pedal up on the sidewalk, go around the traffic jam and back into the street.  Illegal, of course, but the two young New Jersey cops who were riding on my bus to provide security just laughed, with a touch of envy, and I suspect the police on the street probably did too.

I didn't take photos of the strike.  (Though I tried to get one of the Santa Claus driving a pedicab!)  But I took a few photos of Christmas in midtown, and here they are.  Don't you love the camels?  I walked a mile across town, ducked into Rockefeller Center to thaw out, and emerged just near the big Christmas tree.  And there at the curb were three camels, with their handlers, just standing there, presumably waiting for...something.  A star to follow, perhaps?