The Prowess and Fortune of a Street Vendor

Alexander Parson opening shop for the day on the corner of 72nd Street and Broadway.

Alexander Parson, Upper West Side street vendor, opening shop for the day, on the corner of 72nd Street and Broadway.

One of the many advantages of being a street vendor is the tangible sense of free will: the freedom to set your own hours and change business locations indiscriminately. But Alexander Parson, a local street vendor, says he will never leave the Upper West Side where the money is easy and the commute is a few blocks down the street.

Parson wakes up every morning and leaves his apartment which he shares with his brother’s family. Before the sun rises, he walks four blocks to the intersection of 72nd Street and Broadway where there are two tables covered with large tarps. Parson sits beside the tables on a black crate with a cup of coffee to keep his hands warm. He doesn’t remove the tarps. He just sits and reads and waits for the sun to break.

In a pair of blue jeans, a blue navy peacoat, and worn construction boots, Parson doesn’t meet one’s typical expectation of a businessman. Despite his appearance, Parson says he is in the book business, not the bookstore business where a startup costs over $3,000, financing is over $3,000, average monthly expenses are over $70,000, and average monthly sales are over $80,000, which leaves the owner with an average monthly profit of about $11,000. Parson makes a little over a quarter of that a month. He doesn’t pay rent or wages, and he doesn’t have a store—just two long tables to tend.

This is the day-to-day workings of an informal street vendor on 72nd Street and Broadway.

As the sun rises over the Upper West Side, there are cinematic elements that one sees in films about New York. The streets teem with pedestrians. The sounds of impatient honks and the rattling trains beneath your feet. The well-known vendor, who everyone seems to know by name, engages in jovial conversation or stern inquires about his inventory that most often concludes with firm handshakes and less often with cash transactions.

Later at 9 a.m. Parson begins to unwrap his tables which lie at the head of a succession of tables down Broadway, teeming with New York’s most precious commodity: books. Hundreds of books are stacked, one on top of another, on Parson’s tables. From a distance, they look haphazard and informal but every book is categorized by themes—classic, modern, history, theatre and art, autobiography and biography, and, American and British novels.

The question is how does Melville and Hemingway, RuPaul and Lauren Conrad, and even Oprah Winfrey ends up on his tables?

“I don’t buy books; it’s not like I have a store,” says Parson. “Everything is donations.”

Parson’s movements are fast and brisk as he sorts through new inventory. Suddenly a pedestrian walks up behind Parson and scans the books. He picks a few up, flips through their pages, and then smiles at Parson before he walks away.

Alexander Parson categorizing books that are donated by Upper West Side residents, on the corner of 72nd Street and Broadway.

At 52, Parson, stands as an exemplar of perseverance in America. He started six years ago as an apprentice for two street vendors. For one year, Parson worked under their management, transporting and selling books, and completing other menial responsibilities. That same year, when the men decided to retire, they handed down their tables, business contacts, and inventory to Parson. In a year, he gained expertise in street vending and a chance to change his circumstances at the age of 46.

Late into the afternoon, he sits, stands, and socializes with other vendors through the chilly, overcast day. With satisfied sells, Parson disappears for an hour. Massy White, another street vendor who works beside Parson, tends to Parson’s tables while he is gone. The street vendors on the Upper West Side have a brotherhood: a code to look after each other’s tables when one is gone.

Parson returns with more books.

Parson is very scrupulous about the quality of the books he sells even though they are donated. He doesn’t accept books that have been written in, highlighted, have bent and loose pages, and that are crinkled and torn.

“The better condition of the books, the better price you can get,” he says, which an average book on his table sells for $5. A much better deal that one would get at Barnes & Noble.

As Parson packs up his wares, there is a stillness on the street as if there is an invisibility between him and the pedestrians. The civility is gone and soon will he, but the books will stay.

When the street vendors close business for the night, there are no carts and no van or trucks and no storage barrels. The same books that are donated for sell are the same books left on the street—unguarded and unprotected.

“There is a respect in the neighborhood,” Parson says.

Later at 8 p.m., Parson covers his tables with the same tarps and ties their corners securely around the tables’ legs; then, he walks away.

Back Where I Came From

I agree that Back Where I came From is a love letter to New York City. It expressed things that I could relate to being from New York myself, and although some of us don’t always stop and think of how great our City is, we know why it is great if someone asked. Liebling is very comparative in order to emphasize on what he is trying to say. When you compare something to something else it creates a visual on something you can’t see upfront. Also Liebling sometimes uses the comparative to stress something that could not probably compare to New York for example when he says “I always think of back where my friends came from as one place, possessing a homogeneous quality of not being New York.” He is comparing and thinking of where his friends are from and looks at New York to say it does not compare, there is nothing like it. Relating to love with someone else it is like the only thing you see, like New York is to Liebling.

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese at The Crescent Street Deli & Grocery

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The smell of freshly made bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches wafts through the air and mingles with the rich scent of coffee that has been brewing since the crack of dawn. While waiting in line to place your order, you are blasted by a rush of cool air as the door opens every two minutes for customers rushing in to get their daily fix.

“I’ll have a bacon, egg, and cheese.” That is the phrase that cook, Javier Gomez, hears about 50 times daily while working the grill. Jorge Domingo, his partner behind the counter, works with him brewing fresh coffee to be paired off with the breakfast sandwiches.

Crescent Deli & Grocery, located at the intersection of Newtown Avenue and Crescent Street is the ideal stop to get your morning started in Astoria, Queens. The Deli & Grocery store hours are the same for every day of the week, opening at 5:00AM and closing at 11:00PM.

Basher “Tommy” Hassan co-owns the Crescent Street Deli & Grocery with his brother, Mohammed “Mo” Hassan. The brothers have lived in Astoria for an average of 20 years and have owned the deli for about ten years. They decided that opening up a Deli & Grocery business would be a great way to build something together and spend time together.

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Bashar “Tommy” Hassan

“We wanted to be our own bosses” Tommy said, naming it as one of the driving factors for opening the deli & grocery. Tommy, being the more social brother out of the pair, mostly handles customer relations behind the counter while Mo handles the behind-the-scenes processes such as restocking and employee management.

The Hassan brother’s Crescent Deli & Grocery happens to be very popular even though it is not located on a main road in the neighborhood. It is, however, right across the street from an all girls Catholic high school, a Catholic church, and many neighboring apartment buildings. Teachers and students from the school and many of nearby residents are the primary customers for the Hassan brothers. The Hassan brothers have so recently become merchants on Grubhub and Seamless, allowing for customers to have their orders delivered to them–an advancement that has been greatly helping their business.

“I always order a bacon, egg, and cheese,” comments high school teacher, Lauren Fromberg as she waits to place her order with Javier. “It never gets old. And the service here is always great!”

Lauren Fromberg is one of many that starts her morning with a stop at Crescent Deli & Grocery before heading across the street to start her day as an English teacher. It is also impossible for her to avoid running into students, since many of the girls like to stop by to buy chips and other snacks before class. Tommy also mentioned that he and Mo sometimes provide catering for early morning teacher’s meetings as well, making the Catholic school one of their biggest customers.

“It’s always the busiest in the morning, from about 7AM up until late 10AM. Everyone’s rushing in and we’ve all got to keep up.” Mo says as he restocks bottles of orange juice into the refrigerator shelf. “It’s always an adrenaline rush every morning, working to keep up with our customers.”

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Competition lurks just up the block in the form of a C-Town supermarket where sales and discounts are never rare. The grocery prices at C-Town are definitely lower than the prices at the Crescent Deli and Grocery and the Hassan brothers simply cannot compete with prices that low. However, the Hassan brothers do have an advantage over C-Town with Grubhub and Seamless. While C-Town does not deliver groceries or food, the Hassan brother’s have an advantage in being the one vendor in the residential area that can serve their clients by bringing the products and food they desire right to their door.

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Tommy explains that he and Hassan try to offer more than just food in order to keep up with their competition, the C-Town supermarket on the next block. Aside from having an aisle dedicated to potato chips, hostess pastries, and other packaged foods, the deli also offers a selection of personal items such as toothpaste, soap, and even laundry detergents. In some ways, they have become a “one stop” destination by offering a wide assortment of items so that customers can get everything they need from their store.

“You’d be surprised about what some people buy.” Tommy smiles, commenting on his customers buying patterns. “Some would order breakfast, and then also purchase a bottle of shampoo or bottle of cleaning product.”

The C-Town located just up the block does have much more foot traffic than the Crescent Street Deli & Grocery, however, there does not seem to be as much of connection between customers and cashiers. Customers pace the aisles of the store, grabbing what they need and not interacting much with store employees as they move beside them.

Cashier Sarah Ali has worked at C-Town for a couple of months while attending classes part time at LaGuardia Community College in the neighboring town of Long Island City. She comments that when working at C-Town, she “just tries to have each customer checked out as fast as possible.”

It’s clear that even though C-Town does drive more traffic, Crescent Street Deli & Grocery has been able to stay alive through their connections to their customers. It is their faithful, everyday customers that help their business to stay grounded.

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Although the location of the Deli & Grocery definitely does not get nearly as much foot track as it would if it was located just two blocks over on 30th Avenue, it is strategic enough in that it attracts many customers from the nearby high school, and residents from the apartment buildings before they rush over to the train station on 30th Avenue.

When asked about the competition at hand, Tommy simply shrugs and says, “Competition will always be there, it’s just something to keep you motivated to work harder each day.”

They strongly believe that they are able to keep up with the competition by offering deli and grocery items as well as a heaping side of very personalized service for their daily customers.

“I see these guys everyday,” says construction worker Bill Lombardi. “They know my order so well–they always ask me if I want ‘the usual’”

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What keeps the Hassan brother’s business stays alive through the strong friendships and ties built with their frequent customers.

Where I Came From- A.J Liebling

I agree with Philip Hamburger. Liebling’s Back Where I Came From is like a double edged sword. Bittersweet yet tangy, honest yet jokey, lovely yet dreadful. He does not hold back and pushes the envelope and includes  pain with a mixture of sarcasm and wit. Liebling loves his city, but he isn’t afraid to call problems out. He isn’t afraid to expose the agony that comes with living in such a big city. I love how Leibling compares the city to a “complicated Renaissance clock” or when he says “A man lives on a street until the mayoralty grows over him like patina.” These statements  are examples of how fast and forgetful NYC can really be.

 

Liebling

Liebling’s “Back From Where I Came From” can be described as a love letter to New York. He uses description of New York to show this. Through his slight criticism of people and places other than New York,it is obvious that he has a fondness of the city he grew up in.  Further, he says that there is nothing better than New York and the people who live here. He profiles various New Yorkers, showing their diversity and individualism.

Where I came from

I agree it is like a love letter. Leibling expresses how he feels about New York. He compares it to places his friends travels and feels like no other places has the same quality. It’s just not New York. He talks about the people, saying New York women are the most beautiful in the world. As a reporter the technique he used was chronological. He told us the history of him living there, of his dad living there as well. The business his father owned and of the origin of the dialect locals spoke.

Lucy Dawind

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Midtown West is a region representative of New York’s Fashion Capital, and is referred to by many by its sobriquet, the “Garment District”. With world-class fashion schools like Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology just a 15 minutes subway ride away, the ubiquity of buttons, ribbons, and fashion stores come as no surprise. As a district that houses such artistic potential, Midtown West is a virtual battleground of fabric stores. A quick Yelp search reveals over 1600 stores in the area. Amongst them, the second Yelp hit, Paron Fabric, is open seven days a week despite what seems to be a wide-spread practice to close on the weekends. The ratings reveal popular support for this store with four and a half stars out of a possible five.

Upon reading the Yelp reviews, the name of a single individual who diligently works at this fabric store popped up; Lucy Dawind. An enthusiastic yelp reviewer discribes her uncanny ability to reply comprehensively to all 100 of their questions pertaining to silk. Harboring mixed feelings between the desire to meet this knowledgeable, presumably amiable individual, and doubts about such an inordinately positive Yelp review, I headed to Paron Fabric. There, I found Dawind sitting in a cozy box on the right-hand side of the entrance door.

Dawind is a sweet 65 year-old woman from Poland, who immigrated to the United States when she was 20. Dawind claims that, while she did not have a say in the matter of her immigration, she had always aspired to move to the states. Perhaps the vision of pursuing the American Dream then and now remains unchanged. Dawind emphasizes her family’s immigration through a permanent visa with a flicker of pride. She adds that everything was better back then; there was less crime, and finding employment was not at all arduous, and purchasing items of value was not as difficult as it is today.

According to Dawind, her career in a fabric store was only an accident; she had neither been studying fashion, nor did she particularly have a strong interest in it. Dawind’s original Fabric store, one that she had devoted 20 years to since 1971, had closed as a result of massive urban development. ”They used to be 40 streets full of fabric, but now it’s only restaurants and hotels. NYC is catering to tours not to fabric”, she says. At the first fabric store, she studied the intricacies of the various fabrics. This required mind-numbing amounts of time devoted to memorizing fabric types, but her persistence paid off. She started working at Paron Fabric, where she has now spent 25 years; “I like working in the Fashion Capital of New York, that’s why I’m here so many years. But I don’t know if it still is.”

Dawind claims that her “Fashion Capital New York” is gradually disappearing. Numerous factories and fabric stores have been decimated, and many have been forced to shut down. “Made in the USA” has become a rarified, expensive logo, and the cloth manufacturing industry has shifted to China and its South East Asian neighbors. Designers began preferring cheaper fabric, and mass manufacturing of fabrics became a cultural norm; something Dawind cannot agree with. “I wish things are what they used to be, but I think that’s impossible.”

With rents rising exponentially, the survival of small stores such as these may be difficult. Even a veteran of the city such as Dawind is forced to face the harsh realities that accompany living in New York; every day, she must rely on public transport to commute from New Jersey.

Dawind says the city of New York is rife with change, and living here is like living in the world of a television drama. She was attracted to surprise, happiness as well as fear and disappointment in this city. Dawind’ favorite fabric is a natural, cool, yet diaphanous cotton, which resembles her very own personality: with its softness. This softness seems to be missing from the city that currently reaps satisfaction from its immersion in business.