For several days, Mr. Sammler returning on the customary bus late afternoons from the Forty-second Street Library had been watching a pickpocket at work[…] Mr. Sammler if he had not been a tallstraphanger would not with his one good eye have seen these things happening.
The number of elevators has grown significantly since 1990, when the Americans With Disabilities Act set off a transformation of the aging transit system. For the disabled, the changes promised to open doors, while thousands of otherstraphangers—parents with strollers, older travelers—expected a small dose of convenience in a wearying city.
