No Escape | July 24, 2007 | 21:54

I just watched an old Rangers game from 1983. They beat the Islanders 7-6 in Game 3 of the Patrick Division finals. It should have been a diverting, escapist moment. It wasn't. The Rangers would go on to lose that series to the Isles, who would go on to win their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup. I will go on, at least for the moment, living in Bed-Stuy instead of moving from this oft-unpleasant neighborhood as originally planned.

I had an apartment lined up in the Bronx. It was huge. It was affordable. Yeah, it was in the Bronx, but it's my ancestral homeland. And it wasn't any worse than the part of Brooklyn in which I currently reside.

So, wherein laid the rub? Ten dollars for the mailbox key, $10 for the building's front door and $25 for the apartment door. Add to that a $65 credit check and it was too much extortion for me.

I'm extorted every day, living in New York. A dollar for less than a pint of water. $2.25 for a slice of pizza. Rent. Groceries. You name it. There is nothing here from which anyone can get their money's worth ... it's just that some people have enough money that the prices don't matter.