And now...

Thank you to everyone who came to Wall Street, or tried to, a few weeks ago. I appreciate your support. It made an unfamiliar street somehow familiar.

For those of you who couldn't make it, I'll let you know when I bring the cart to the streets again so you can check it out. In the meantime, if you'd like a CD with illustrations and writing about the project let me know and I'll send you one!

Even though the first installment of Make Me One With Everything has concluded, the project isn't over. I will continue to learn about street vending in NYC and work with vendors at The Street Vendor Project. I'll be posting writing about these experiences here. I'll also be planning where and when I'll take the cart next - so stay tuned.

In the meantime, you can learn a lot from SVP's website: www.streetvendor.org.

Thanks, again, for your support. Stay in touch.

Coming soon to Wall Street

Next week, I'll stand on Wall Street for longer than I probably should have committed myself to, sharing music and ideas with the public. I will bring my musical vending cart and some CDs to give away. I will also bring some ideas and facts and stories about street vending in NYC.

You'll hear the voices of many different street vendors in NYC, and you can read some of my thoughts about getting to know vendors. I'll listen to what you have to say about street vending. Do you think street vending is important? Do you appreciate having streets lined with carts of food and tables of merchandise? How often do you buy things from a street vendor and who is your favorite?

Come visit me! I'd love to talk with you.

MAKE ME ONE WITH EVERYTHING
free art from a vending cart
By Stephanie Skaff
Music by Paul Damian Hogan
Design by Yvonne Jukes

Wednesday, September 19
Thursday, September 20
Friday, September 21
Saturday, September 22
8:00am - 6:00pm each day
FREE

For more information about street vendors, visit: www.streetvendor.org
For more information about this project, visit: www.stephanieskaff.com

Oh, and get your tickets for the 2007 Vendy Awards on September 29! Again, visit: www.streetvendor.org

See you soon!

Steph

Hendrix and Miles Row

Today I spent the day on 125th Street in Harlem with one of my favorite vendors, who sells African-American art, prints and postcards. Just as I got there, it started to rain. He thought I brought the rain, since it was delightfully sunny until the moment I turned my bike onto 125. My first moments at his table consisted of me watching his system - covering his prints with a tarp, removing all the removable parts from his stand, replacing those prints that weren't in plastic, putting them into his van.

After around ten minutes of this, his two tables were protected from the rain and we were able to settle in underneath the lid of the trunk of his mini-van to eat strawberries and talk vending. My intention was to conduct a proper interview with him and, like usual, I got caught up in conversation and forgot about the recorder altogether. Needless to say, I didn't get a single sound recorded. But I had a day that made me grateful for this project and grateful for New York City.

Michael's a leader among the vendors; he believes in unity and justice, and has spent half a lifetime as an activist. 125th Street is a vending dream. Sometimes I wish every street in the city looked like this one, from a vending perspective at least. Affordable goods of all types line the blocks: hot dogs; Nuts 4 Nuts; wholesale socks; shea butter and oils; artwork; silkscreened sweatshirts; fruit; ices; and music. People stop and browse, and the presence of the vendors only encourages the bigger economy of stores like H&M and Foot Locker. And even though I think those stores are hideous on this street, and elsewhere for that matter, they co-exist with the vendors pretty well up there.

The rain stopped. Michael, Fred (his partner) and I removed the tarps and ate cookies. We talked about music. We talked a lot about music. About the segregation of music these days, and how in the 70's you could see 5 bands in one night for free in NYC. They know their music, and not just the jazz that they were raised on, but everything that made it to Woodstock, the Apollo, the Bottom Line, Cafe Wha?, Dick Cavett and Ed Sullivan. Fred's a Hendrix-phile; Michael's a Miles-phile. So they call their stands "Hendrix and Miles Row". They play some awesome music at their stands, and I couldn't believe all the music I've been missing as I try to catch up with white, Indie-rock.

Hanging out with these guys reminded me why New York is special. People are friendly. People are agile. People are different from one another, and it can be so beautiful to find yourself changed by those differences. I went up to Harlem today with one intention, and returned with a different idea about why I went up there in the first place. Who knew that standing on the street corner for a day would make the city seem so sensible?

Thanks, Michael, for welcoming me always.

The Dosa Man

Today I spent the afternoon with the infamous Dosa Man at Washington Sqaure Park. He is what I would call a "celebrity vendor", and he deserves every bit of his fame.

After trying to make contact with vendors in several neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, I was starting to feel rejected like a door-to-door salesperson. I realized that the only vendor who could cheer me up would be Thiru, The Dosa Man, so I made a trip to the Village to ask him some questions while he set up his cart.

Before I knew it, I was fat with vegan treats, taking orders for masala dosas, and making change for his customers (which were lined up halfway down the block for hours - and this, even when his faithful NYU students have packed up for the summer). I got to play vendor for a day!

Thiru has a way about him. He moves with ease between customers waiting in line, waiting at his "drive-thru window", calling in their orders ahead of time, and just popping up behind him to holler out an order or two. He never gets thrown, and has a memory that doesn't fail. He knows his regulars and treats even the greenest of customers like they're old friends. Everyone is grateful, and everyone comes back.

He embodies the entrepeurial American spirit, but his radical politics, guerilla attitude and unwavering diplomacy make him a special kind of businessman. Thiru renewed my faith in NYC, and in this project, after a morning of meeting resistance from protective Wall Street vendors. I can't help but wonder if the power-broker energy of the Financial District influences the vendors who work down there?

Since my project is set to take place in that monied district, I hope I can bring some of Thiru's creativity and generosity to that neighborhood. In the meantime, you'll have to see him for yourself. Go get yourself a dosa!

If You Lived Here, You'd be Home by Now

This weekend I went to the first day of an eleven-week workshop held by Community News Production Institute - a non-profit that trains low wage and immigrant workers as radio journalists to tell the stories of their communities. The workshop was facilitated by a very impressive journalist, Mitch Jeserich (whom you might know from Wake-Up Call on WBAI).

I had heard of CNPI before, but it wasn't until I heard Mitch introduce the training workshops to a room filled with vendors that I started to understand the significance of their work. He is very good at what he does, both in radio journalism and community outreach. So good, in fact, that he was crowded by vendors afterward who were eager to share their stories with him.

Responsible journalism has been on my mind a lot lately. We talked about the media at this workshop and came to a unanimous conclusion that almost all our news sources in this country are unreliable, and that they consistently misrepresent the stories of U.S. immigrants. I've always just assumed this to be true, because the news misrepresents everyone's stories, but I've never thought about it in detail.

The hard-working, law-abiding men and women who make up the majority of the immigrant population, and who greatly contribute to our economy, are represented in the news by images of immigrants in handcuffs for criminal behavior or in detention centers for terrorist activity. These rare exceptions, as portrayed in the media, are influencing too much of our public and too many of our policies.

The participants in this workshop, who were for the most part not vendors, incidentally, all agreed that they came to this country to seek better opportunities for themselves and their families. The United States advertises these opportunities; we've practically made a brand out of hope. So why do we entice people here if we have no intention of hearing their stories? Is it just so we have more people to buy our excessive consumable goods and work our low-wage jobs? Does this seem like false advertising? Maybe I've answered my own questions.

Anyway, I'm excited for this workshop for many reasons: to get to know the participants and to hear their stories; to become familiar with radio journalism; to learn more about immigration issues through firsthand experiences; and to find ways to be a responsible documentarian as I embark upon this street vendor art project.

I am the only non-immigrant in the group, and I'm not part of the population that CNPI intends to serve with this program, so I'm grateful that they are allowing me to sit in on the classes. I can't wait to share more as the weeks progress. In the meantime, check out www.peoplesproductionhouse.org and www.wbai.org to learn more about good people doing good things.

Pushcarts for Peace

Jean Merrill wrote a lovely book, entitled The Pushcart War, in the sixties, about a fictional (but relevant) war between vendors and truckers on the streets of New York City. This book dealt with all things New York: real estate, congestion, movie stars, city council, NYPD, supply and demand, the black market, big business bullies, neighborhood alliances and more.

I read this book recently, and I'm reminded of it after reading a leaked email from Lobbyist Richard Lipsky, which was discovered in March 2007 by The Politicker in The New York Observor. Lipsky is gaining the support of city council members, Business Improvement Districts, and real estate organizations to create a "diverse umbrella coalition" to crackdown on street vendors in NYC. This "Peddler Compliance Coalition" seeks to "reclaim the streets for tax-paying store owners".

Since when did "our" streets need to be reclaimed by store owners? Don't these streets qualify as public space, and don't legally permitted vendors have the right to be there?

As a sector of the informal economy, street vending is often contested by shopkeepers in New York. It makes sense - these business owners pay hefty real estate taxes and don't want competition on their block from members of such a mobile industry. But I wonder if these vendors are, in their own way, reclaiming public space for themselves and, therefore, reclaiming this space for the rest of us?

In Merrill's book, the pushcart peddlers wage war using pea shooters aimed at deflating the big trucks' tires. Everyone gets involved: Morris the Florist, Frank the Flower, Old Anna, Harry the Hot Dog, Carlos ("Cartons Flattened and Removed"), the movie star, Wenda Gambling, Papa Peretz ("Pretzels 6 for $.25"), and Maxie Hammerman,"Pushcart King".

Both parties write manifestos; both parties play dirty games. After scandals and scapegoating, truces and a peace march, the pushcart peddlers and the truckers eventually take their battle to city council. City council creates "The Courtesy Act", making it a criminal offense for a larger vehicle to take advantage of a smaller vehicle in any way. This Act makes the streets safe for the peddlers for years to come, "so that there should always be a few pushcarts on the streets of NYC".

As Richard Lipsky gains support from members of city council, maybe we could learn a lesson from these fairy tale peddlers and stage a peaceful war to ensure that NYC real estate doesn't take advantage of the vendors who make our city streets dynamic and unique.

The American Dream

I heard a vendor say recently, "That a country this big would have such small ideas about street vending." I loved this statement. She said it in disbelief, but, for me, it raised some interesting questions about the limitations of our great democracy. For all our freedoms, we are still bound to less-than-progressive economic systems and monopolized commerce that lacks vision or creativity.

This is not to say that visionary markets don't exist in this country, because of course they do and we're lucky for them, but the vendor's statement seemed indicative of, what seems like, the direction of the American economy - one of branding, cronyism, and low-risk games of Monopoly.

With all the talk about American branding these days, and people from my generation and other generations fighting the corporate establishment through films, books, art, journalism and grassroots organizing, I have been under the impression that these problems are relatively recent. However, as I learn about the history of street vending in New York City, I'm discovering that our progressive city has never fully supported the entreperneurship of street vendors, considering street vending something that happened in "the old world". Mayor LaGuardia had his beef, so to speak, with vendors in the '30s, and Guiliani followed suit in the '90s. I wonder if either one of these Italian mayors celebrated the connection between their heritage and the history of pushcart peddling?

In 1925, a study was released by the United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, in cooperation with The Port of New York Authority. The report, entitled "Push Cart Markets in New York City", was originally intended to study the importance of push carts as a marketing channel for agricultural products, but it quickly grew to include insightful information about the cultural, economic, and sanitary implications of street vending in NYC.

With the population in NYC increasing from 391,000 in 1840 to 2,000,000 in 1880, local farmers were unable to accommodate the needs of the city's consumers and produce had to be shipped in from further distances. The process of bringing this produce into the city became haphazard and caused irregularities in the fruits and vegetables. This is where street vendors became important, according to this study, because they were able to take the lesser quality produce and sell it to the poorer communities, hence they helped support the greater economy AND helped to support class divisions! Isn't that great?

In my impression, vendors serve all kinds of people. The juxtaposition of stock traders on Wall Street lined up for coffee and bagels in the morning, and hot dogs and Halal express lunches at noontime, is an indication that, when it comes to tasty food made by friendly people, there is no prejudice.

Sure, the food is cheaper than Dean & Deluca. But the last time I was in Dean & Deluca, the specialized, imported produce was rotting and the place wasn't nearly as clean as some of the vending carts I've seen. So, I'm interested to explore how street vendors come under such scrutiny for having the same business sense as some of the biggest corporations in this country, and succeeding despite language barriers, police harrassment, low wages, families abroad, and very little recourse. Shouldn't they be celebrated for embodying the "American Dream"?