Bush Closes Down Midtown

Leaders of the world are sitting a few blocks away from me, as George Bush is just about to address the General Assembly of the United Nations. All of Midtown East is locked down. Roads are closed and traffic is gridlocked everywhere. There are thousands of cops in evidence, and I've noticed some "businessmen" wearing sunglasses and earpieces as they stand impassively on the corners. I'm heading out to get some pictures of the big protest march on Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

UPDATE: While President Bush was at the podium making his perfectly cromulent case to the General Assembly, I found myself caught on the fringes of the very highly secured perimeter of the United Nations, where the NYPD twice singled me out to demand my photo ID on a public street crowded with hundreds of other onlookers, where I was accused of being in the CIA by a woman holding a pro-Iran banner, and where I very nearly got stuck in the middle of a spiraling confrontation between a couple of hundred pro-Musharraf and anti-Musharraf ex-pat Pakistanis.