What is Bothering New Yorkers on a Summer Day?
Abdul Es, a fruit vendor, on Broadway off 96th Street, opened his wallet and pulled out a $50 note. “Fake,” he said, and lifted the note against the sunlight to show the absence of vertical lines that are found on a real one. Then he pulled out a real fifty and compared the two. “I will have to pay my boss the amount,” he said. “I don’t understand how someone I trusted could cheat me like this. Me supporting my wife and children.”
He often advises the homeless people not to use counterfeit twenties, which could land them in prison, but this was a client he trusted, he said, pointing to his chest, so he was upset that his good “feeling” had failed.
Abdul was one of ten New Yorkers on a busy corner who were randomly asked what the most pressing issue on their minds was. The answers were as disparate as the people—homeless man on probation, MTA inspector, carry-truck owner, construction and kiosk workers: “I am happy.” “Black market.” “No!” “I’m content.” “No problems.” “MTA lady not moving her jeep.” “Nothing in particular.”
Around the corner from Abdul’s fruit stall, Donavan King said that the cost of everything was always going up, that if you secured a job that paid $25 an hour, then the cost of living would be $26. Donovan—whose nonfiction about admiring firefighters was included in a book about children’s responses to 9/11—works 40 hours a week, yet unable to afford the basics.
Across the street at the 1, 2, 3 subway entrance, a masked MTA employee, Tawaanna Wilson, said that what bothered her was, “Everything. Working.” After some hesitation, she elaborated that we start our lives working and keep on working, no time. It just doesn’t make sense.