Forget it, Ayn. It's Chinatown

There's a deep secret hidden somewhere behind the inscrutable facade of Chinatown. It's a dirty, grimy secret. It's a secret with unfathomable mass. It's a secret with infinite weight.

Those who deal in the trading of secrets won't find this one easily. It's housed in a building behind a blue sign lettered with gold Chinese characters and a napkin taped on a door upon which the words "phone bank" were hastily scratched by some long-forgotten wretch.

Once through the door, secret seekers must run a gauntlet: six flights of metal stairs, bulging trash bags, and broken pieces of furniture. At its end is the secret's sanctum, a "wide-open cavern of Chinatown despair: walls stripped of fixtures and decor, two dozen cheap, unmatched chairs thrown together for some long-forgotten meeting or class, and a soulless excuse for a bar with a BartendingLicense.com sign posted on its front."

And a cube framed with grimy plastic sheeting. From a distance, it looks like a klavern of ghostly klansman seeking warmth from a sooty fire. That's fitting, because it's the home of Ron Paul's NYC phone operation.

They call it "LibertyHQ."

It's guarded by a phalanx of gray pudgy young men armed with cellphones and the latest pocket protector technology. They are the guardians of the secret. No one gets past them. No one violates the holy of holies.

Not even a business journalist.

A helmet tip to Casac.