New York City residents like myself are experiencing the coldest winter on record and I am quite certain the Loving Spoonful never wrote a song about freezing your ears - and other things - off while fighting to catch an uptown cab on Third Avenue at 1 a.m. It's certainly not "Hot Town Summer in the City, back of my neck getting dirty and gritty" time in Manhattan. Unquestioningly, it's very far from it.

Loving Spoonful didn't have to because there is nothing even remotely musical or romantic about winter in Manhattan after the holidays and holiday tourists have left town. It's just cold and mean out there. In fact, I would even argue that during the period from Jan. 2 until the first Hampton Jitney of spring, New Yorkers are closest to attaining the hostile and gruff sterotype the rest of the world applies to us.

And you know what? I like it that way. You gotta problem with that?

For example, throughout the holiday season, I have no problem helping a tourist or two find their way to Rockefeller Center to ogle the Christmas Tree and/or the Rockettes. I have often gone out of my way to escort a misdirected Midwestern family to FAO Schwarz or Times Square so they can be properly pick-pocketed by "real" New Yorkers. I even remember one time when I was riding the subway to work. I smiled and chatted with a tourist who thought taking the subway was more fun than taking the mono-rail at Disney World.

And now? No way! I sincerely doubt you will find any New Yorker who will brave the frigid weather to assist a well-meaning out-of-towner find his way to the Empire State Building. There just isn't time to be helpful while you are freezing.

Although it seems heartless to admit that "getting home quickly" ranks as a higher priority for me than helping a human being in need on account of a high wind chill factor, I am well prepared to weather that storm of criticism. It's not a matter of morality. It's a matter of economics: New York City is indeed more valuable than tourist or even "bridge and tunnel" time and especially when it's cold out.

The math is simple.

New York City dwellers pay sky-high rent to landlords on a monthly basis, ridiculous prices for groceries on a daily basis, nosebleed taxes on a yearly basis and vicious rates for parking on an hourly basis. Just entering a yellow cab costs $2 and then you are charged, or more appropriately, overcharged by the minute.

And why do we push ourselves in order to live in this fiscally irresponsible way? In order to get home quickly. New Yorkers pay for the privilege of proximity. Proximity and being able to order from eight different Chinese restaurants in a two-block radius when it's way too cold to leave home.