Man you had me with the first line - then I read the rest. My condelances. Nice handling of the reflections off the care giving a nice smooth tonality.
I like the original (first one) as tells better the story of a gloomy depressing day. How you treat this image is determined by the story you are trying to tell.
I saw mention of the "Dear New York," somewhere and that is was being held in Grand Central Station ... went there to see and took some pics but I was getting tired (not from the show .. my physical body) and couldn't stay too much longer and then the sun poked through the ceiling and I hung around a bit longer ... a shot of someone getting their shot
I don't get outside to take pictures any more but, here in Texas, I always included overhead power lines and "bob wahr" fences because this is Texas, dammit.