Taking Back Public Space
Just like they have been for the last 200 years, most street vendors in New York City are immigrant entrepreneurs. They do not ask for government funding or city subsidies. They pay taxes and put up with intense regulation. All they want are a few square feet of public sidewalk to sell their delicious food and quality merchandise to the public.
But even those few feet can be hard to find. Over the past twenty years, real estate interests in the form of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) have lobbied the city to declare many streets and areas off-limits to vending. Other regulations -- for example, the prohibition against vending within 20 feet of any building entrance -- further limit available public space for vending.
Worst of all, property owners sometimes use illegal methods to exclude street vendors from the public space. One way is by placing large planters on the sidewalk, under the guise of "beautification," to physically displace vendors. Though these planters are usually unauthorized, the city typically takes months, if not years, to remove them or ticket the property owner. In this case, the Street Vendor Project organizes direct collective actions to reclaim public space for our members. In this way, we are gradually taking back space for hard-working immigrant vendors and the customers who love them. This video tells the story of one such recent action:
Sean Basinski is the director of the Street Vendor Project, a North Star Fund grantee since 2002.
