This piece was originally published in Pirate Wires.

Walk through Midtown at night and the story writes itself. Gas-powered mopeds idle in clusters outside The Roosevelt Hotel, their headlights cutting through steam from the street vents. Riders sit slumped over paper cups of coffee, helmets at their feet. Upstairs, people in $4,000 per month apartments track their Uber Eats orders on their phones: “Your Thai curry is six minutes away.”

Everyone in this city knows what’s going on. We just don’t say it out loud.