As I walked down Bowery, I took comfort in the relative silence of the 4am lull in traffic. It was one the rare moments in the city where all you can hear and feel is the breeze and the cool, moist air. Far up the street, I could see taxicabs waiting to break my silence. And then, as I turned the corner I saw a skinny, greasy old man, still spinning from a hard night of harder liquor. The bent stub of what used to be a cigarette bounced between his thin, cracked lips as he looked at me and said,

"We've been here before."