FIFTH AVENUE DIARY. On Saturday afternoon, as I ran errands near Columbus Circle, three radiant (but, I hope, non-radioactive) Russian tourists asked me, in broken English, how they could get to the big Christmas tree. Resorting to broken English and hand gestures, I pointed them in the right directions: east and south. Later, I was glad that they started by walking south--the Fifth Avenue sidewalks were thick with pedestrians--all the way up to Grand Army Plaza (where poorly timed "construction" blocked traffic on 58th Street between Fifth and the Avenue of the Americas). I'm not sure I've ever seen Fifth Avenue so crowded.

Photo: David Marc Fischer