We are the huddled masses yearning to be home, waiting for the subway that doesn't come. The time passes. We crane our necks to look up the platform, hoping to see lights emerging from the tunnel. And when, finally, the train lumbers in, it's so packed that many of us are unable to get in.

Mumbai? Beijing?

No, we are inside the grimly gray 68th Street station on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where a few meters above us the average price of a three-bedroom or larger apartment, The New York Times reports, is $6.6 million.