Modern man has developed innumerable devices for blowing himself up, giving himself bad eyesight, high blood pressure, flat feet, nervous indigestion, and ossification of the brain. He has produced an atom bomb and a panty girdle, the vitamin pill, the comic book, the subway gum machine, the soap opera and the revolving door. But in the minds of thousands of New Yorkers all of these achievements pale when compared to the Fifth Avenue bus.
Despite its elephantine proportions, the double-decked bus was designed for a purely hypothetical race of men with an average weight of 98 pounds and an average...