Selling stuff on the streets of New York City is for the strong, the tough and the relatively young. Along with the daily setting-up, selling and repacking of merchandise, vendors also have to deal with the city’s light-fingered and mentally unbalanced. So when I saw her selling used books on a Lexington Avenue street corner, a frail old woman who looked to be FAR north of 80 years old, I wondered how she was physically and mentally up to the job. I had already walked a few blocks past her when curiosity reversed my course and I returned to her book-covered table.
Up close, she was quite the snappy dresser, a beige corduroy cap rakishly tilted over an eye, a big shirt layered over a tee shirt and narrow black pants. She was sitting beside a collapsible table, surrounded by boxes of hard and soft-covered books, each selling for a big buck. Propped up among them were pen drawings of stylized heads in black and white with touches of red. In the illustration game myself, I asked her who had created them. Perking up, she sat up straight, her sharp blue eyes looking straight into mine. They were her drawings she said and the main things she was selling. The old books were there more or less as add-ons. This started a conversation about the problem of storing artwork, which we both shared, having small apartments, the resemblance of artist’s faces to the art faces they created and a new clothes designer we both admired, who had recently opened a nearby shop.
Abruptly interrupting us, a tall, chunky man in a big brimmed Panama hat, shorts and sandals stepped between the woman and me. “Guess I’m not so smart today!” he exclaimed. “I just lost $12,000 option trading this morning.”
She gazed at him, politely listening…
Not many things bore me more than option trading so I only picked up scraps of his explanation: “The Chinese bought…and I bought…then they sold…”
I could see the old woman was as disinterested as I was, but she was good at not showing it. Not that it would have mattered. Panama Hat was so wrapped up in his own center stage story, he seemed beyond noticing anyone’s reaction or lack there of.
After he dashed off as briskly as he had dashed up, she told me he had been an actor in the days before she met him. “All he talks about now is the market,” she said regretfully. “It’s a shame. I’d really like to hear more about his acting and stories about who he worked with, but money is all he seems to care about these days.”
Which got us into a discussion about plays and from there into Broadway stars who stayed at the top of their game at ages when most of their colleagues had packed it in. During our chat, more neighbors stopped by to say hello. And it was these people, she said, and all the fascinating strangers she met, who were the best part of her outdoor gig. Completely focused on the moment and relishing her interaction with such a wide variety of passers-by, she was clearly not one to waste time on any of the possible negatives her situation suggested. Her intelligence and effervescence softening her deep wrinkles, she slowly transformed my initial concern for her situation and stamina into admiration.
She lived across the street and only set up shop in nice weather. When I inquired how she managed to get those heavy boxes of books back and forth, she breezily replied she hired someone to do it. No, this was not a woman to be stopped by any obstacles, big or small.
Like many others, she had needed some extra cash. At her age, her choices for getting it had narrowed. Yet without complaint or any diminishment of self, she had found a way. And had come out of it considerably richer than she had gone in.
More on NYC Street Life and Shopping
- Street Treasures Found and Lost
- Tales of Big City Shoplifters
- You get what you pay for…Baloney!
- Picnic in NYC with a King and a Guitar
Leave a Reply