New York, 1935

"Here also it was fall, the kind of crisp and brilliant day New York often enjoyed before it became uninhabitable..." (Time Patrol, p. 342).

"Here also..." Farness has just come from Europe, 372, the Wanderer's staff still strapped to the side of his timecycle. This sentence also refers to the future. When will New York become uninhabitable?

Farness continues:

"...this year chanced to be the one before I was born." (ibid.) Thus, we begin to learn about his private life. He was recruited to the Patrol in 1980 but he and his wife have opted to base themselves instead in the 1930's. The descriptive passage continues, appealing to more than one sense:

gleaming masonry and glass;
clouds on a breeze in the blue;
a tang from the few cars;
the stronger aroma of roast-chestnut carts;
glamorous shops;
beautiful women;
diverse people.

The Time Patrol series is a fictional world that the reader can live in.