The Prowess and Fortune of a Street Vendor

Alexander Parson, street vendor, organizes book inventory on the corner of 72nd Street and Broadway

 

By Lynnette M. Booker

One of the many advantages of being a street vendor is the tangible sense of free will: the freedom to set your own hours and change business locations indiscriminately. But Alexander Parson, a local street vendor, says he will never leave the Upper West Side where the money is easy and the commute is a few blocks down the street.

Parson wakes up every morning and leaves his apartment which he shares with his brother’s family. Before the sun rises, he walks four blocks to the intersection of 72^nd Street and Broadway where there are two tables covered with large tarps. Parson sits beside the tables on a black crate with a cup of coffee to keep his hands warm. He doesn’t remove the tarps. He just sits and reads and waits for the sun to break.

In a pair of blue jeans, a blue navy peacoat, and worn construction boots, Parson doesn’t meet one’s typical expectation of a businessman. Despite his appearance, Parson says he is in the book business, not the bookstore business where a startup costs over $3,000, financing is over $3,000, average monthly expenses are over $70,000, and average monthly sales are over $80,000, which leaves the owner with an average monthly profit of about $11,000. Parson makes a little over a quarter of that a month. He doesn’t pay rent or wages, and he doesn’t have a store—just two long tables to tend.

This is the day-to-day workings of an informal street vendor on 72^nd Street and Broadway.

As the sun rises over the Upper West Side, there are cinematic elements that one sees in films about New York. The streets teem with pedestrians. The sounds of impatient honks and the rattling trains beneath your feet. The well-known vendor, who everyone seems to know by name, engages in jovial conversation or stern inquires about his inventory that most often concludes with firm handshakes and less often with cash transactions.

Later at 9 a.m. Parson begins to unwrap his tables which lie at the head of a succession of tables down Broadway, teeming with New York’s most precious commodity: books. Hundreds of books are stacked, one on top of another, on Parson’s tables. From a distance, they look haphazard and informal but every book is categorized by themes—classic, modern, history, theatre and art, autobiography and biography, and, American and British novels.

The question is how does Melville and Hemingway, RuPaul and Lauren Conrad, and even Oprah Winfrey ends up on his tables?

“I don’t buy books; it’s not like I have a store,” says Parson. “Everything is donations.”

Parson’s movements are fast and brisk as he sorts through new inventory. Suddenly a pedestrian walks up behind Parson and scans the books. He picks a few up, flips through their pages, and then smiles at Parson before he walks away.

At 52, Parson, stands as an exemplar of perseverance in America. He started six years ago as an apprentice for two street vendors. For one year, Parson worked under their management, transporting and selling books, and completing other menial responsibilities. That same year, when the men decided to retire, they handed down their tables, business contacts, and inventory to Parson. In a year, he gained expertise in street vending and a chance to change his circumstances at the age of 46.

Late into the afternoon, he sits, stands, and socializes with other vendors through the chilly, overcast day. With satisfied sells, Parson disappears for an hour. Massy White, another street vendor who works beside Parson, tends to Parson’s tables while he is gone. The street vendors on the Upper West Side have a brotherhood: a code to look after each other’s tables when one is gone.

Parson returns with more books.

Parson is very scrupulous about the quality of the books he sells even though they are donated. He doesn’t accept books that have been written in, highlighted, have bent and loose pages, and that are crinkled and torn.

“The better condition of the books, the better price you can get,” he says, which an average book on his table sells for $5. A much better deal that one would get at Barnes & Noble.

As Parson packs up his wares, there is a stillness on the street as if there is an invisibility between him and the pedestrians. The civility is gone and soon will he, but the books will stay.

When the street vendors close business for the night, there are no carts and no van or trucks and no storage barrels. The same books that are donated for sell are the same books left on the street—unguarded and unprotected.

“There is a respect in the neighborhood,” Parson says.

Later at 8 p.m., Parson covers his tables with the same tarps and ties their corners securely around the tables’ legs; then, he walks away.