Woohoo! NYC's Downtown Now Boasts a Zip Line

New Yorkers are known for walking much faster than needed on the sidewalk. Naturally, they'd appreciate flying along on a zip line.

And they had that opportunity on Tuesday in Union Square, although none were so New York about it that they whipped out a BlackBerry and send a few texts from the air. The city's department of transportation set up the 160-foot-long line as a preview of its later deployment during Summer Streets, an annual celebration of public space on the first three Saturdays of August. It's the first year that the festival has included a zip line, though New Yorkers have always had other ways to frivol away the afternoon, such as riding a mechanical bull and swimming in a Dumpster pool.