Every morning, I ride the Metro-North into Grand Central station, walk through the main concourse, and see the constellations painted on the ceiling. It is the only place in New York City where you can see the stars. You can’t wish on them; you can’t follow them north or augur the future in their twinkling. There is no future in this city. You will own nothing, and you will not be happy. In New York you are on your own, and not even the heavens can help you.

As you come and go to work the stars will remain in the same place, and so will you—or at least you hope. Because New York is a city for people who have everything and people who have nothing. For now you are neither, but the voice in your head says, Not for long, and repeats it every day, because you know things can always get worse—there is no middle without a bottom. One day the constellations on the ceiling will come crashing down with the plaster, and so will you, another middle-class star cast out of heaven. You are consumed by an angry terror. There is nothing more radicalizing than a fear of falling.