NELSON A. SMITH is a freelance advertising writer and essayist living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, the Baffler, In These Times, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a cultural history of pigeons, from Genesis to Darwin to Skinner, tentatively titled "Lessons of an Organic Widget."

At The Ferry

by Nelson A. Smith, April 2003 (Issue 328)