Postcard from... New York

There is a strange cacophony outside the offices of i in Manhattan today. Beyond the whistling of the -10 degree wind through the ill-fitting windows, there is the non-stop beep-beep of countless construction vehicles warning Times Square pedestrians to watch out.

With bewildering speed a small city-within-the-city is springing up at our address, which itself has changed. We are no longer to be found on Broadway but on Super Bowl Boulevard at the corner with 41st Street. Shortly, the normal throngs of office workers and tourists will be replaced with crazed sports fans.

Welcome to five days of American Football mania that the city decided to stage right on our doorstep to coincide, of course, with Sunday night’s Super Bowl between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Sea Hawks. The game will be played across the Hudson River in New Jersey. But much of the associated frenzy – spending, drinking, marketing – will happen here in New York.

We’re all European journalists in this office (none of us has a clue about American Football), but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the festivities outside, among them a steel mountain sponsored by General Motors contoured to create a long toboggan run of undulating white plastic.