Sidewalk

A renowned black photojournalist from Chicago who helps Duneier bring to life the sidewalk and its inhabitants through his photos.

Born Anthony E. Francis in Brooklyn, New York, Hakim Hasan is a 42-year-old black book vendor along Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Hakim’s relationship with the author, Mitchell Duneier, undergirds the book’s entire existence. A simple conversation about Hakim’s Rolodex of contacts leads to Duneier spending years observing, assisting and interviewing the men who inhabit the sidewalks of Sixth Avenue and thereabouts. The connection established between Hakim and Duneier forms the bridge to other members of this informal street economy in Greenwich Village. The trust that the two build through lecturing a seminar together at the University of California at Santa Barbara expands the scope of the book from Hakim to other vendors, thereby depicting a more accurate and multi-faceted portrait of street life in Greenwich Village. He is the first character to feature in the book and also the last, as he pens the book’s Afterword. He is a self-described “public character” similar to those found in Jane Jacobs’s books examining urban life. 

Hakim’s unique background and worldview sets him apart from the other vendors. He studied at Rutgers University and had aims of working in the publishing industry. After being summarily fired from his job as a legal proofreader, Hakim became disillusioned with the corporate world and left to pursue a life of honest work on the streets. Duneier speaks of Hasan’s remarkable knowledge in the first few pages of the book:

Hakim doesn’t just name titles. He knows the contents. I have observed the range and depth of his erudition impress scholars, and have seen him show great patience with uneducated people who are struggling with basic ideas (5).

He seems to be something of an intellectual guide to both customers and other vendors on the street, the latter of whom he assists in settling disputes. 

Alice is a book vendor who is the only woman merchant on Sixth Avenue and the book’s primary female presence. She has a daughter, Jeannie, with a black man. Due to her position as a Filipina woman, Alice occupies a unique standing among the black men who work alongside her. Although some of the men also have grandchildren, their children are largely not present on the streets. But Alice must occasionally care for her granddaughter at work, leading to public judgment. Alice demonstrates the challenges that come with being a female business owner in so public a setting. Alice occasionally helps Hakim (and vice versa) as they have an on-off romantic relationship. 

Muhammad is a Muslim purveyor of black books. When he arrives late one morning, two other vendors take his spot in defiance of the informal rules around each vendor occupying a specific space. The dispute represents the challenges posed by the new sidewalk laws that diminish available space, thus upending the honor system that previously governed rules about vending. 

Jerome is a 22-year-old African-American man who works as a Vitamin Shoppe clerk. He routinely visits Hakim not only to chat about black-centric books, but also to receive unsolicited life advice, which Jerome mostly welcomes: “My parents would try to tell me what to do, but I never listen, so I end up in the predicament that I’m in. So I try to listen to what he has to say” (32). Jerome’s relationship with Hakim illustrates the importance of older mentors to a younger generation of black men who have fractured relationships with their own family members. 

Marvin is a magazine vendor on Sixth Avenue. Although most of the vendors operate alone (or occasionally assist one another, as Alice and Hakim do), Marvin is unique in that he works in tandem with his business partner, Ron. Despite significant obstacles posed by the working relationship, such as Ron’s semi-regular absences due to binging on drugs or alcohol, Marvin remains steadfast in his loyalty to Ron. During a conversation with another man, Mudrick, Marvin defends Ron: “That’s my partner over there…you gotta care about him” (55).

Ron is an alcoholic magazine vendor who works with his business partner, Marvin. Sometimes Ron’s alcoholism and drug abuse and can lead to erratic behavior, but when he is sober, Ron is a dependable vendor and regular presence on the sidewalk. He will occasionally ask other vendors to hold onto a sum of his money so he does not spend it all on alcohol or drugs. Ron demonstrates the obstacles facing addicts who maintain steady work selling written matter on the street. 

Aunt Naomi is Ron’s great-aunt, whom he occasionally cares for and stays with in her Harlem apartment, thus providing him shelter when he desires it. Her positive presence in Ron’s life encourages him to sober up from time to time so that he can keep her company. 

Mudrick is an alcoholic, unhoused man in his late fifties who assists Marvin and other vendors through tasks such as temporarily covering their tables when they are away. He also earns a living as a carpenter for building superintendents in the area near Sixth Avenue. He insists that he lives on the streets by choice, rather than circumstance. His fond relationship with his granddaughter, Dyneisha, illustrates the strong familial ties that some of the vendors maintain, countering the common belief that unhoused people lack a support network. However, his unsolicited, flirtatious comments toward passing female pedestrians demonstrate another side to Mudrick’s character. Albeit rare among the vendors, this kind of behavior leads some residents in the Village to become disgruntled with and possibly form negative stereotypes about the largely black and lower-income street salesmen.

Dyneisha is Mudrick’s beloved 3-year-old granddaughter. She serves as Mudrick’s primary motivation for bettering himself and earning an honest living on the streets. She occasionally visits him during his work hours. 

Ishmael is an unhoused magazine vendor who comes to work on Sixth Avenue after getting kicked out of Penn Station and doing jail time for robbery. He is known for being polite and deferential to authorities, such as when Officer X seizes his property.

Conrad works as a mover for vendors like Hakim and Marvin. He earns an income by transporting their tables and written matter in and out of storage.

Warren is an example of someone who moved up the ranks of the street vending world through observation and mentorship, demonstrating the potential that the sidewalk economy offers for enterprising individuals. He started off as a panhandler, then shifted to serving as a table watcher for other vendors before becoming a magazine salesman in his own right. 

A panhandler-turned-magazine-vendor, Grady sells written matter by a bus stop and sleeps in the subway near Sixth Avenue. 

Keith is a 40-year-old panhandler and formerly-convicted person who solicits money by an ATM entrance. Duneier cites Keith as an example of a panhandler who finds self-respect in his work. He features in the chapter “Talking to Women,” wherein he approaches a white female dog walker named Carrie so he can play with her dog, Daisy. Through Keith’s interaction with Carrie and her dog, Duneier makes explicit the tensions around race, class, and gender between the men of the sidewalk and the passing, female pedestrians.

Joe Garbage is a heroin addict who sells items that he scavenges by “laying shit out” on the sidewalk despite local laws that require items for sale to be placed on tables (95). Scavengers like Joe irritate the book and magazine vendors, who believe that scavengers will bring the attention of local law enforcement upon all the vendors. Like Keith, he also panhandles in front of an ATM vestibule on Sixth Avenue and is known as one of the “men without accounts” to whom Duneier devotes a chapter in the book. He has spent time in prison for drug use.

Leo is also a panhandler in front of the same ATM vestibule and one of the “men without accounts.” He is addicted to crack cocaine and served time in prison. 

Butteroll is a panhandler who sleeps in the “dungeon” of the subway and occasionally stores the tables of Grady and others by the side of the subway tracks in exchange for a ten-dollar fee. He is also known as one of the “men without accounts.”

Raj is an Indian newsstand worker who tells Duneier that he uses the toilet in a nearby Indian restaurant. However, when he cannot leave the newsstand, he urinates in a cup. Raj feels a sense of embarrassment about urinating in a cup due to societal stigma, even though no one can see him. Unlike many of the black vendors, he has no trouble getting access to a bathroom in one of the nearby restaurants.

Officer X is an unnamed, black police officer who engages in a tense encounter with Duneier when he asks the author to take down his table, and Duneier refuses. He later critiques Duneier’s audacity to challenge his authority in a conversation with Ishmael. The officer talks about how he prefers Ishmael, whom he has known for years, to a stranger like Duneier, whom he refers to as “fucking Joey White Bread” (281). 

The Romps are a couple with three young children who come from Vermont to New York every year to sell Christmas trees out of their camper van on Jane Street during the holiday season. In the chapter, “A Scene from Jane Street,” Duneier mentions that the Romps—in stark contrast to the black vendors on Sixth Avenue—are welcomed almost automatically to the neighborhood and even given keys to neighbors’ apartments so they can use proper restrooms and avoid urinating on the streets. Their inclusion in the book illustrates the way race, class, and perceived family values shape a community’s perception of street vendors. 

An attorney representing the Grand Central Partnership and 34th Street Partnership, Andrew Manshel subscribes to the broken-windows theory of policing and believes that vendors like Hakim, who choose to vend on the street, are rebelling against the rules of normal society in an “antisocial” act (232). He champions a law that places restrictions on the space that a street vendor occupy, thus disrupting the informal modes of business on Sixth Avenue. 

A First Amendment lobbyist who advocates for the passage of Local Law 33 in 1982, which originally provided exemptions for individuals distributing written matter to set up on the sidewalk. However, he becomes dismayed with the outcome of the law, which has less to do with protecting the civil liberties of pamphleteers and more to do with vending materials on the sidewalk. He thus joins the efforts to pass Local Law 45 to put in place restrictions on where sidewalk vendors can conduct business. 

New York City’s mayor from 1994 to 2001. His focus on improving quality-of-life issues by tackling panhandlers and scavengers shapes broken-windows policing, which affects Sixth Street vendors.