Claiming Spaces + Spatial Subversion

Claiming Spaces + Spatial Subversion Prelude toThe Vendors Vision Program Maintaining Place through Active Citizenship & Street Food Vending Bonnie Netel + Jessica Kisner MS Design & Urban Ecologies, ‘14

VOLUME 2

Claiming Spaces How do Street Food Vendors Negotiate the Access to Public Space Nowadays? Understanding the tensions and implications between the privatization of public space in Roosevelt Avenue, Queens.

Roosevelt Avenue Today

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Roosevelt Avenue in Queens is a diverse immigrant neighborhood. Walking through it is a wonderful experience full of a multiplicity of aromas, music, flavours, feelings and textures. Businesses range from mystical religious places, to quinc eñeras birthday planning stores, from Bollywood video shops, to Guatemala’s famous Pollo Campero. From Jackson Heights to Corona Plaza you travel through many parts of the world just by walking on this street. It’s representative of a New York full of different ethnicities living in American territory but sharing and reproducing their country’s folklore and traditions on every corner. The seven train passes by on elevated tracks, creating a disruptive noise that interrupts every conversation, but seems to be naturalized by the inhabitants of the commercial corridor. Many things

happen on Roosevelt Avenue, this street tells many stories. This lively street is always full of pedestrians, street vendors, drunks, children, mothers, and strangers.

Roosevelt Avenue between 82nd Street up to 104th Street is a public place that highlights many important issues that are being dealt with today in urban scapes. There is a growing tension between the existing public space and the expansion of Eighty-second Street Business Improvement District (BID), called the Jackson HeightsCorona BID. BIDs are private-public associations that, by a collective, mandate extra tax agreed to by members (property and business owners), decide what can be done in these spaces, usually with the idea of “beautifying” space and making the area safe. This generally means to get rid of undesirable people, unfair competition, and garbage,

as well as to create spaces for leisure, transit, and the promotion of development and quality of life. This last characteristic is clearly the idea of a few who decide what “quality of life” is. Because of its privatepublic character there is a subtle implied sense of privatization and a concomitant commodification of public space1. Much of the existing population in Roosevelt Avenue, such as the street food vendors and several of the local small business owners, do not support this initiative and believe it will bring displacement and gentrification to the neighborhood. Many academics who study urban issues have also disagreed with the BID model (Zukin, 1995; Low, 2006; Kohn, 2004); some even say it is a symbolic materialization of neoliberal growth (Robles-Duran, 2013), that creates exclusionary enclaves and a restriction of access of public space or, as Sharon Zukin (1995:36) suggests, a tool for “social stratification”. These commentators have argued that these private partnerships affect the potential for ideas of public space to be seen as a democratically oriented space.

On the other hand, some business owners believe that the

BID is the only way to protect their businesses from the consequences that might bring the construction of a mall at Willits Points in Roosevelt Avenue at 126th street, and also as a way of dealing with the prostitution and crime that plagues the street. Moreover, many city planners and policymakers have seen the BIDs to be a successful tool to finance supplementary public services to specific areas (Furman Center, 2007). The tension between these two groups therefor makes for an interesting case study to understand how public space2 is being negotiated nowadays.

1Generating a greater discussion about the role of the government and public

2 Notions of what Sharon Zukin (1995) calls “transactional spaces”

sector in the cities nowadays, and bring a greater debate revolting around the problematic and disappearance of the public spheres.

Case Study

The following study will look specifically at the area of Roosevelt Avenue between 82nd street to Corona Plaza in 104th street (see annex No. 1-3). Through the lens of informal urbanities, and more specifically through the focus of street food vending, it will try

(cyberspace and telecommunication) are not the focus of this work, which focuses only on public space in the geographical physical sense.

126 STREET - 82 STREET = APPROX. 3.5 KM (2.2 MILES) IMPORTANT LANDMARKS AND INSTITUTIONS IN CONSTRUCTION WILLETS POINT DEVELOPMENT

FLUSHING MEADOWS CORONA PARK

PROPOSED BID- JACKSON HEIGHT-CORONA PLAZA EXISTING BID 82 ST QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART

STREET VENDORS ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM

NY HALL OF SCIENCE PARK OF THE AMERICAS

WILLETS POINT DEVELOPMENT PLAN

PUBLIC LIBRARY

CORONA PLAZA-103 ST

CITI FIELD STADIUM- METS

126 STREET & ROOSEVELT AVEN UE

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114 STREET & ROOSEVELT AVENUE

111 STREET & ROOSEVELT AVENUE

CORONA PLAZA 104 STREET & ROOSEVELT AVENUE

to understand the friction between the regulated and control entities of public space, and the emerging informalities within them. There is always an ongoing negotiation and reshaping of public space; thus how do these struggles construct new meanings to reveal and redefine public space today? And as the entities of control and regulation govern our public spaces, where do the informalities fit into the city?

Informalities are crucial to comprehend the contradiction and negotiation of public space. Informalities will be thought of not with an economic lens (as they are usually thought of) but as covering more aspects of our everyday life. They are, in other words, all those actions (social, economical and political) made by the people in response to the regulated entities and institutions. Through the notions of Michel De Certeau’s (1984) strategies and tactics, informalities will be defined as the tactics and formalities will be defined as the strategies. This separation between the formal and informal is done only as a matter of clarity, as it encompasses a highly complex dialectic between the two poles and an inseparable and intrinsic relation within them. How are street food vendors negotiating their access to public space in Roosevelt Avenue and how, through their visibility, do they challenge some notions of public space?

In New York City there is not a concrete number of how many vendors exist nowadays3; there is also the assumption that the

majority are immigrants, and many are consider undocumented by the State. James Holston (1999) talks about insurgent citizenship and how many citizens fight for their legitimate status to be in public space and make claims for those spaces. According to Neil following Holston’s insurgent citizenship: is particularly visible in the case of documented and undocumented immigrants [and street food vendors] who, because they occupy the fringes of citizenship, challenge legal and normative conventions about the openness and accessibility of public space. (Neil, 2010:5, emphasis added)

These characteristics help to see the relation between informalities and control over public space and how it is being challenged and (re)negotiated. Whether they are grassroots

3 Entities such as the Street Vendor Projects make an estimate of 12,557

vendors including merchandise, first amendment, food vendors. 6,000 of those are estimated to be unlicensed.

AREA OF STUDY 1.92 KM (1.19 MILES)

ELMURST HOSPITAL NEW PLAZA- 90 ST. PS 307

PS 19 COMMUNITY PLAYGROUND

JUNCTION BLVD-97 STREET

82 ST BID

100 STREET

JUNCTION BLVD & ROOSEVELT AVENUE

90 STREET - ELMHURST AVE

82 STREET & ROOSEVELT AVENUE

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organizations or everyday practices the insurgent forms challenge the strategies and the power entities and “disrupt established histories.”

(Holston, 1999:48) By showing the friction between the formalized city and informal everyday life, we can see the struggles and negotiations in public space and how this is being defined, redefined, and constructed with new meanings and experiences. To occupy is regularly an act of ongoing negotiations driven over a physical security and territory linked with a geographical collective identity (Zukin, 1995). This presents a series of questions in relation to Roosevelt Avenue: how are these negotiations made in the everyday life? What do street food vendors do in order to govern their spot in public space? What tactics do they embrace to trick the strategies? And where does theory and everyday practice meet?

The Proposed Jackson Height Corona BID

NYC Department of City Planning.

Source: MapPluto 2011

New York City has the most BIDS in the United States, and in Queens there are 12 existing BID models. From those 12 BIDs, the 82nd Street BID, which has been functioning since 1990, has a plan to expand all the way to 104th street4 (see figure No. 1 and Annex 1-red) creating one of the largest BID in the city.

This plan is still not official and it is in the first stage where it needs the approval from the urban planning commission. To do this, they need the signature of more than 50 per cent of affected businesses to agree on the proposal. Till this date, they are still collecting signatures and looking for approval, though the process was going to be due in October 2013; tensions between those in favored and those who oppose the expansion have delayed the decision until early 2014 (but also, most of the local business have opposed to the plan5).

Community Board 3 Roosevelt Avenue Community Board 4

Commercial Use

48.3% INCOME SUPPORT

58.3% HISPANIC ORIGIN

69.3% RESIDENTIAL USE

14.1% TOTAL COMMERCIAL USE

4 The original plan was up to 114th Street, but was narrowed it down, as Seth

Taylor explained, “it was after they had done some further research that they thought the area between 104th street to 114th street wasn’t prepared for a BID.” Interview November4, 2013. This meant, for him, that there was not enough traffic and the area was not so dense.

5 Interview with Pablo October 16, 2013. The names of the people interviewed

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Roosevelt Avenue Separates Community Board 3 and Community Board 4.

The pilot project to clean the streets in Roosevelt Avenue has been an initiative from the local government. It has been an initiative to show how the BID will work6, and campaigns for a cleaner and safer street (see Picture). Over the last six months there have been people sweeping, removing graffiti and garbage collecting to show the results on the mockup.

New plazas have also started to pop up throughout the Avenue.

Colorful chairs and tables, planters with flowers and trees, rocks separating the street from the invented plaza are some of the elements used to “beautify” and mark the spaces (see pictures). The plazas are a project from the Department of Transportation (DoT) that have been popping all over the city, multiplying and generating the same aesthetic.

Nonetheless they have open spaces for interaction and community gathering that the residents and neighbors seem to use often. These initiatives have changed the character of the neighborhood and have also been the flagship projects of the BID. As Devlin (2011) suggests, the streetscape design used by the BIDs is one of the most common strategies to keep the undesired people from frequenting the public space. These strategies include: planters, surveillance, and private security.

Even though in the BID’s website the street vendors appear to be one of the stakeholders, as Maria7, a street vendor, says: it wasn’t until later that they were taken into consideration to be made part of the plan. This was mostly due to a protest held in Corona Plaza September 2013 against the BID (Barlet, 2013). While some may point toward the contentions in the community environment, the expansion of the BID has arguably helped local businesses and street food vendors to organize around a collective issue. It has also helped a disjunctive community get together and create a social infrastructure.

Explaining the difference between strategies and tactics

were changed to protect their identity.

6 The money from the pilot project has come out the city council’s discretionary budget.

7 Interview made October 26, 2013

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Before Getting Into The Subject a Brief Explanation on How Public Space is Thought of Today

The BIDs have opened the space to discuss the future of public space. Though many of these issues have been questioned before, the BIDs have crystalized and made tangible the private-public partnerships that may lead to the disappearance of a democratically public space. The importance of understanding the implication of what it means for a space to have a private-public partnership can be seen through different scholars (Zukin, 1995; Low and Smith, 2006; Kohn, 2004; Holston, 1999, Deutsche, 1996), but mostly through the work of David Harvey. Harvey (2012) has argued how the neoliberalism has created cities that revolve around the idea of commodification, consumerism, economy of the spectacle and that this ideas have created a type of city that usually response to the private interests. The new urban political economy has thus revolt around the idea of privatization or quasi-privatization of public space.

Privatization, commodification and securitization are some of the key concerns today in the social sciences as they create certain “public” spaces but more importantly they produce or promote particular social, political and economic relations. It is through these ideas that theories of public space are now moving on. These ideas are all intertwined and usually feed on the other to be able to exist.

They bring to the table greater discussions about the importance of democratically public spaces and the importance of the public sphere.

Privatization of public space

The privatization of public space is a big topic in today’s analysis of the public. Setha Low and Neil Smith say, “the struggles for pubic space today has everything to do with contemporary debates of pitting the public against the private, and vice versa” (Low and Smith, 2006:14). Low (2006) emphasizes how the private interest has been taking over public space in many ways, such as park conservancies, gated communities and BIDs – that is why it is pertinent

to understanding the current situation in Roosevelt Avenue-. Lofland (1998) has named the phenomenon the “private city” and has shown how most American Cities since World War II have been designed with these ideals in mind (also alluding to securitized city). Many have also highlighted how privatization reinforces segregation, exclusion and homogenization. (Kohn, 2004; Holston, 1999; Deutsche, 1996) These studies therefore emphasize how privatization is an uneven and antidemocratic stance that is just in the hands of a few rather than represented by “collective responsibility for social production.” (Katz, 2006:106)

The privatization of the city cannot be understood without referring to the historical political situation in the United States that configures this model. It started from the privatization of public services in the 19th century, but recently has grown to conquer other spaces in the city such as public space. In New York City, the Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) emerged with the 1961 Rezoning Resolution allowed developers to built higher buildings if “public space” was given to the city, creating a transformation in the public space. On the other hand under the Reagan’s presidency with the lack of funds from the American federal government to the cities in it led to the private-public partnership as the strategy to claim the economical loss.

From the appearance of the POPS to the BIDs legalized in New York in the early 80’s, the control of public space in the city has changed from the government to the hands of private corporations and individuals.

In New York City, after the 9/11 attacks, the ideas of securitizations took on another dimension. The “zero tolerance” policies, which have increased urban policing and private security safety (RoblesDuran, 2013) have generated a lucrative private security business.

This privatization happens by two factors, on the one hand there is an economic reason on the other hand, the private sector wants to have a greater influence in urban space. As Low (2006) says, “these ‘physical’ tactics, though, are bolstered by ‘legal and economic’ strategies in which private interests coopt the public, placing public goods in the hands of a private corporation or agency.” (p. 83) Therefore, privatization has made many of public spaces completely beholden to corporations, creating a commodification of these spaces.

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Commodifications of public space

The commodification of public space thus goes hand in hand with privatization. With all the space being privatized it seems as if the city is being sold to private individuals and corporations (Kohn, 2004; Leeman and Modan, 2010). Culture has also been seen as a commodity tool to control cities and a way to advertise and market a space (Zukin, 1995; Leeman and Modan, 2010). Robles-Duran (2013) goes even further and argues that cities and public spaces are instruments of the neoliberal project where the only outcome is the productivity of urban space in a profitable manner for corporations. This commodification of public space has a greater impact in creating templates, monotonous lifestyle cities around the neoliberalism ethic project (Harvey, 2012:14) which most of the times erases the cultural and embedded meanings of a place. The commodity of public space thus is created by the privatization of public space. They start as a private good provided by the state, but as they start to get overcrowded they change into a commodified space. Once they are congested a private organization manages and maintains the space creating an exclusive and restricted area (Webster, 2007).

Shifting responsibility to a private or corporate partner, cities have reinforced their inability to govern and have started a commitment with the corporations that is very difficult to break. Not only from an economical position, but also mostly because in the imaginary of the citizens government can never perform a high quality and reliable service or a material infrastructure. Securitization has been the pillar for these ideas to be constructed upon.

Sanitation makes part of securitization and usually comes also with notions of beautification. Sanitation and securitization are key concepts when looking at what is happening in Roosevelt Avenue. The campaign for the expansion of the BID relies completely with the idea of a “cleaner” and “safer” space. What that means, continues to puzzle many, but the consequences it might have in a long term, can be those similar to the Manhattan’s midtown and financial district BID cluster that have created purely monotonous, commodified and securitized spaces.

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Sitting and resting Benches are one of the most obvious control material infrastructure we see in our urban landscape, designed specifically for a certain temporality, the benches are for just sitting and not for sleeping.

Securitization of public space

Many authors have talked about control and securitization in the cities. Foucault’s ideas of the panopticon (1975) have shaped our own idea of cities as a controlled environment. Many authors have used his writings to show the different forms of control that are being exercised in today’s spaces. From the multiplicity of surveillance cameras and police force (Blitz, 2004; Katz, 2006; Davis, 1990); to urban enclavization and gated communities as spaces of segregation in cities (Davis, 1990; Low, 2006; Holston, 1999); the idea of fear as a tool of designing our cities seems to be the path taken today by most city governments. As Davis writes, “there is a tendency to merge urban design, architecture and the police apparatus into a single, comprehensive security effort” (Davis, 1990:224). Many of these security initiatives have led to segregated and privatized spaces.

These control mechanisms are exemplified through the use of the built environment, showing how influential the material infrastructure is in our social relations and as Lyn H. Lofland (1998) argues it is one of the most successful tools of regulation.

The Rhythm of the Conceived, Perceived and Lived Spaces Every time there is interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy, there is rhythm. (Lefebvre 1992, p.15 )

All these categories show how public space is now being built and many of the consequences the privatization, commodification and securitization of public space has. But how is this being materialized in the physical world? What role, for example, does infrastructure play in the creation of public space? As Lofland (1998) argues, the built environment shapes us and determines what we are able to do in space: what interactions occur and with whom. This might be an example of environmental determinism (Rapoport, 1980:26), as it shows the importance of the built environment as a space to create interactions.

Most importantly it selects what those interactions might be and with whom, in designing spaces of inclusion and exclusion (Zukin, 1995;

Kohn, 2004; Deutsche, 1996). As Amos Rapoport (1980) suggests the built environment is a setting for human activities: “such settings may be inhibiting of facilitating, they constrain choices selectively, and a particular setting may be facilitating to the extent of acting as a catalyst or releasing latent behavior” (p. 27). That is, according to Rappaport, the built environment doesn’t necessarily determine, but rather “facilitates” human activities.

However, it is not only the built environment that decides every activity that happens within it. There is an inextricable relation between social actions and the physical space (Torre, 1996:249). Individuals, institutions and groups can organize and shape the public space, having a great impact on the city. These organized social interactions make up the social infrastructure that exists within a city in order for it to work.

For instance, the everyday tactics done by many street food vendors are ways of challenging the system and creating new dynamics. These dynamics often result in transformations at a greater scale, disrupting the formalized categories in urban space (Crawford, 1995).

In The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre (1974) he addresses how space comes into being and he pinpoints three types of spaces: conceived, perceived and lived. The conceived is the mental space where the dominant power orders and rearranges space. The perceived is the material-physical world, which is filled with social formations. The lived space is the social space where meanings, appropriations and complex symbolization are put into play. Each of these spaces works simultaneously and inseparably to create a given space or spaces. Thus it is the combination of the social space, the physical space and the mental space that make up space itself.

The ideas of Lefebvre, Rapoport, Torre and others thus allow the observation that there is an intrinsic relation between the material and social infrastructure and the social-political structures that determines any given space. The importance of this intrinsic relation of Lefebvre’s spatial triode anticipates Rapoport’s (1980) and Loflands‘s (1998) point on the built environment as an influential factor in our relationships, but also highlights how the power social actions affect designed spaces and indeed suggests the possibility of new designs.

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Who decides how a space is shaped becomes one of the biggest factor in controlling space, but also and more importantly in governing social interactions. Public space therefore, cannot be thought of without the idea of power relationships: who has access, what should it look like, who should create it, and who should use it, are a series of question which always brings up the factor of negotiation, exemplifying the power structures within it.

Negotiations on Roosevelt Avenue Today

These negotiations go beyond the problematic of the expansion of the BID and the street vendors. To truly understand how street vendors negotiate their access to public space, we need to understand how appropriation comes into play. Appropriation of space is an everyday practice. The formalized is always being challenged and transform, the spaces are created in the present, and the material infrastructure that was once built with a certain activity inscribed in it, can be a field of exploration and intended accidents that the different individuals construct with their ideals of place.

Appropriation is a way of changing an existing space and embedding it with new meanings and uses (Getreuer-Kargli, 2012:169), it is a spatial practice that challenges the existing nature and modifies it with human needs and possibilities (Lefebvre, 2004). Informalities are all about appropriations. As Devlin (2011) comments, “informalities itself comes to operate as a mechanism of governance.� (p.55)

Some of these appropriations are more noticeable; others make part of those invisible characters of a place. The visible appropriations can be spatially documented and are re-interpretations of the existing.

With the construction of certain material infrastructure city spaces have acquire a variety of loose spaces or insurgent public space (Franck, 2007; Franck, 2011; Hou, 2012; Pask, 2010). The emergent spaces have opened the possibility for citizens to appropriate space however they want to. They have challenge the predetermine activity of that space and inscribed a new meaning. These tactics of appropriation are seen throughout Roosevelt Avenue. The elevated tracks that support

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Cultural Appropriations Smells, Noises and Appropriations in Roosevelt Avenue

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the train and the street infrastructure has created concrete

“islands” of loose space that have been taken and shaped by the citizens or city entities to host different activities. Some of these spaces have been appropriated by the city with the creation of plazas, others by street vendors that have made a sidewalk restaurant that congregates the community to gather around tacos and quesadillas.

The not so noticeable appropriations are designed by the interaction with the different actors, for example the police harassments, the friendships with store owners, the nebulous laws and regulations that are inscribed in the cart and the vendor, the language barriers, etc. help to appropriate a given space and start a negotiation.

The invisible appropriations are lessons taught on the everyday. They depend on an intense knowledge of a specific place. They don’t rely on the physical or the material infrastructure to exist. They are symbolic actions that establish a new world of possibilities.

Appropriations of space are ongoing negotiations with the formalized, with the informal and with the present. There are various negotiations and forces that generate conflicts and ties in the community. These give greater insight into how space is being negotiated but also into how it is lived and constructed. Through three lenses - cultural negotiations, negotiations of power and conflict, navigating the (in)formal - the work will describe the various struggles, the different actors and the individual tactics a person or group embraces in order to belong to and build an urban place.

Cultural Negotiations: an ensemble of the past with the dreams of the future in a creation of the present

Belonging is different to everyone; in an immigrant life belonging is a complex state that goes beyond the idea of citizenship

and identity (Yuval-Davis, 2007 in Viteri, 2011). Belonging creates a spatial relation where memory, history, tradition and food play a great role in building space. Cultural negotiation of space – is the result of the exchange between the former territory with the cultural background of a person- is thus important in reading public space in an immigrant

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Pedro is Mexican. He sells tortas (sandwiches) in a food truck decorated with symbols and shields from Mexican soccer teams.

He is all about soccer. He started working on the streets after an accident he had with his right knee that took him out of the restaurant kitchens. Because of the accident, he wasn’t able to find a job, so a friend lent him some money and he started selling tortas on the fields. Every Sunday he would go on his bike and sell 15, then 30, and then 40 sandwiches. As the business grew, Pedro decided to buy a pushcart, partnering up with his friend. After his pushcart was stolen in the parking lot he left it in every night, and after many tensions with his friend, he decided to start his own business- and soccer was not going to be out of the equation. He bought his food truck and built it himself. His menu refers to the Mexican teams, and you can have a torta from Los Pumas or C.F Monterrey. He has a huge television behind his grill where he plays soccer games from all over the world. He connects his 42” television to a stereo set making the volume so loud the seven train is hardly heard when it passes by. When there is no soccer playing, Pedro listens to salsa; his stereo lets him enjoy the sound of the timbal and piano without being disrupted. And because he has been there for such a long time, his neighbors don’t say anything about the noise either.

He decided he was not going to buy a power plant to connect all his appliances (television, stereo, refrigerator, microwave), as he says “the train is loud enough, just imagine having a power plant!” So he decided to connect his truck to an apartment close by. He uses the subway elevated track material infrastructure to bring electricity and cable T.V. The dark green iron columns help to disguise the cables and whenever they are not connected they are just placed in the small hole the columns have. In the summer with the soccer season, he rents some chairs to put on the sidewalk for people to gather together to watch soccer and eat tortas. Pedro has created his own little place in the city, where soccer, community gathering, salsa dancing and knowledge are all shared while enjoying a gigantic sandwich..

It’s all about soccer and salsa Food Truck = community gahering

neighborhood. People make space and reproduce it according to their origin and their ideas, but also adopt and play around with the existing features of a space to create places of belonging. The Roosevelt Avenue commercial corridor presents a complex cultural negotiation where the multiple identities are connected in an intricate condition that creates places of belonging. The nostalgic idea of homeland in an immigrant neighborhood allows for a re-creation and re-assembly of the public space. This nostalgic notion comes from the impossibility of returning to their country of origin (whether actual or imagined) that impregnates every aspect of the immigrant’s life (Vitari, 2011).

Cultural traditions have to be contextualized into the new territory. Whenever there is a different cultural demonstration in space ideas, the idea of insurgent citizenship becomes clearer, “the new spaces of citizenship that result are especially the product of the compaction and reterritorialization in cities of so many new resident with histories, cultures, and demands that disrupt the normative and assumed categories of social life.” (Holston, 1999:50) The different histories, identities and traditions, disrupt the formal territory and inevitably demand for new urban spaces to be created. These challenges to the existing place always carry new forms of appropriation but also generate a new way of thinking about public space.

Food and its vendors play an important role in this cultural production of space as it brings together a group with similar identities to unite and create history and a collective memory (Vitari, 2011), they help to create and re-create their culture and collective identity. In the case of food vendors and local restaurants the food distribution not only creates a link to their cultural background, but it also generates immigrant networks with the creation of small-local businesses that also promote informal functions of training systems and social infrastructures (Sanchez, 2013). There is thus a constant exchange of knowledge not only through the ways they to operate the streets but also through the products and food sold by each vendor.

There is thus a sharing of knowledge that overpasses the political barriers and frontiers and helps other immigrants learn about the culture. This culture sharing in Roosevelt Avenue is one of its

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greatest assets. A majority of vendors learned how to make their

own country’s food, proliferating their culture throughout the globe but have also learned to cook other country’s traditional foods: Mexicans learned how to make Ecuadorian tamales, Salvadorians learned how to make Colombian obleas (a typical dessert similar to a waffle made with caramel spread). Sharing cultural knowledge is therefore an important way of socializing, and in Roosevelt Avenue, everything has to do with a cultural representation. People are always bringing in their cultural identity to the space.

An example of this how through 82nd Street to 104th Street, a predominant Latin-American population has built its place in relation to its background. Most of the signs are in Spanish, flags are displayed on light posts, on balconies, in windows, products from the countries are sold in the stores, famous food chains are seen throughout the Avenue, the smell of chuzos, fried chicken, tamales and hot chocolate fill the space. English is hardly ever heard, and salsa, corrido and norteña music is played on loud speakers that try to compete with the sporadic noise of the passing trains. The space is built in imaginaries of Latin America, but in American land- creating a new places that connects them to homeland.

These connections go beyond the imaginaries, but are made physical in space. The smell of food is a reminder of home, but it is also a tactic used by many vendors to be noticeable. Some of the alternative modes of vending8 throw small pieces of pork to the improvised grill, to create a scent of BBQ, which attracts clients. The food sold comes also from different geographical spaces around the city and around the globe. The ecology of the street food vending thus becomes is a mixed network of cultural relations with the people’s origin and the present place. Oaxaca cheese made in New Jersey, Ecuadorian corn and cancha corn (typical from Peru) are brought frozen by ship and distributed in Queens, yucca is brought from Mexico and sold in fruits and vegetables 8 Alternative modes of vending are mostly those vendors that don’t have a permit. They might have a license, but the mode of vending is usually one that is not regulated by city laws. This will be discussed in depth in the following sections.

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carts. Here the food distribution works as a vehicle to create new social relationships that connect the space to different areas of the city but also to the world.

This neighborhood has therefore learned to live with a variety of cultures. Though there are relations with other cultures -as explained earlier with the example of learning other foods from different placesusually the people gather and live together with the people from the same country and in that country people from the same region. In fact many of the Latin cultures don’t interact with one another. There are tensions between the different populations, mostly related to jobs and territories struggles. These tensions can be mostly heard through different comments individuals say about others, usually pointing out negative aspects. For instance, a group of Ecuadorians comments how the neighborhood has gotten worse since the Mexicans arrived. The Mexicans have supported the street vendors, which in the opinion of some Ecuadorians has made the area unsafe and dirty. Others also talked about the struggles between the Colombians and the Mexicans dealing with issues of drugs and comment how the neighborhood has declined because of these gang fights. Mexicans point out the bars and prostitutions near the Colombian area (closer to Jackson Heights in 80th Street). In fact, there was also a food vendor who showed us how he recognized the different populations just by their physiognomy and way of dressing. Knowing the differences and conflict between the residents also helps to understand how the space is being built up. Though there wasn’t enough time to truly understand the tensions between the cultures and to know if they had to do with political, social, racial, economical conflicts and confrontations, it is important to highlight that these tensions exist and that make part of building space. The conflict is not only consequently limited by cultural differences; there is a lot of tension between the different actors that interact in public space as well, such as other street vendors and city authorities.

In this neighborhood full of influences of many cultures, the connections go beyond the imaginary, where food and street food vendors play an important role in propagating the various cultures. This cultural exchange and cultural merge- from food, to representations, to traditions- produces the space of Roosevelt Avenue. The cultural

Ramiro sells Colombian arepas (a corn griddle cake), chuzos (shish kebab), and Colombiana, Manzana- famous Colombian soda pops. Ramiro had never made arepas before; he learned from a Colombian friend that introduced him to the business.

He prepares his arepas, but buys his chuzos from a distributor in Astoria during the week, and goes out to sell every Thursday to Saturday from 11 at night till 6 in the morning. He likes working at night because the policeman doesn’t bother him at that time. He has been working on that corner with his portable gas grill ever since the policeman from a corner near 74th street displaced him. Because he hasn’t had a permit yet Ramiro gets harassed by policeman very often, a nightmare that will end soon because Ramiro won the lottery and soon will have a permit. He wants to name his new cart: Aracataca. Aracataca is the hometown of Colombian Nobel literature laureate, Gabriel García Márquez. Ramiro says he wants to teach about Colombian culture, not only to others, but also to his fellow Colombians that have forgotten where they are from; he sees himself like a cultural aggregate scattering Colombian culture in Queens and beyond. As he prepares the arepas and chuzos, the smell attracts different people from around the block. Shaking his head recurrently in a greeting manner, Ramiro acknowledges strangers and friends, but still longs for his homeland. He talks in his thick paisa accent about his dreams, his frustrations and his ideals. He used to be involved in the art scene back in Colombia and came to New York to follow a dream. And though he never saw himself selling arepas, today he enjoys what he does because he gets to meet and interact with different people from around the neighborhood.

From Colombia to Queens Culture aggregate of the streets

17

negotiations don’t stand-alone; the conflict and power tensions produce a whole different layer that allow for certain social interactions to happen but also for space to be produced.

Power and conflict negotiations: governing the right to the sidewalk

Conflict between vendors is very common in Roosevelt Avenue and around New York City. As there is not much “free� space for the vendors, having a great location is such a great asset that it is usually passed from generation to generation. There is even a social understanding that a particular sidewalk is property of the vendor.

Governing a street is a whole process of negotiations, but once you have control of a spot it is yours. There is a thin line of private-public use that usually is respected by the inhabitants. In the case of Roosevelt Avenue, the fruits and vegetables carts came after the street food vendors. This first conquering of the space, the entitlement that spot is yours, along with time on the street allows for a given vendor to have greater action.

This creates a tension with those who arrive later, whether they are business owners or other street vendors.

The tension grows even more by the ways a space is inhabited.

The fruits and vegetables have made their spaces of sales larger than what the law allows them to by placing two tables close by and joining them with a flat surface. This is possible because the same person owns the permits of both carts. As time is an essential part in governing the sidewalk, having multiple stands is also a huge advantage. The fruit and vegetable stands, though position themselves later in the specific space, have acquire a lot of power as most of them have more than one permit.

This has helped them fight the use of trucks-that are used for storage and transportation of the fruits and vegetables- and that has become one of the topics of negotiation with the BID.

Apart from the appropriation of larger space, the fruits and vegetables vendors need trucks to supply them with produce everyday.

These trucks are usually parked along Roosevelt Avenue just behind their stand. This tension between the different groups had not started if

18

Tensions and Appropriations of some Street Food Vendors Appropriations most of the times result on conflict. In this case the trucks used by the fruits and vegetables creates conflict with other street vendors, local governments and businesses. The extension of the fruits and vegetables creates conflict with other street vendors. The plastic used by some street vendors to cover themselves from the rain or snow creates continuous tension between vendors and businesses.

it wasn’t for the expansion of the BID. Julissa Ferreras, the city council has a closer relation to the food processing carts, mostly because they have been there for such a long time, some, like Costanza who has seen the city council grow, has a close friendship with her. This relationship has given the food carts an advantage in the negotiation of the future with the BID’s expansion, but is has also created a tension with the other vendors. Some food carts have been meeting with the city council. Ferrara has expressed the discomfort of the parked trucks on the street, Constanza, who is s street food vendor, says that Julissa Ferreras, “will not take us out of our spot as long as the fruits and vegetables trucks are out of sight.” This has only been communicated to the food vendors and not to the fruits and vegetables salesmen, creating tension between the two groups. The local government want to remove the trucks from the streets arguing they are taking away parking for local vehicles. They also argue that the fruits and vegetables make more trash. The local authorities and some business owners also complain that they are not letting space for their stores to be supplied as the trucks are parked there from morning till night.

Having another vendor close, not only takes away some of the clientele, but also might bring attention from the regulatory entities.

This is why many of the street food vendors have encounters on a daily basis. Some argue that ever since the fruit vendors entered the street panorama the Department of Health (DoH) has come regularly increasing the probability of tickets and fines. The tension grows so strong between the vendors that some are even calling the police to come in order to accuse other vendors for misusing or abusing the public space.

The reason a street vendor selects a particular area varies.

It could be it was the only available spot in the street, proximity to their homes, recurrent pedestrian space, ties to the community, less regulatory entities control, etc. but once they are position on that spot an ongoing negotiation starts. Being on the streets is something you have to negotiate: with the community, the business owners, and the regulatory entities. One of the biggest challenges is dealing with police treatment and displacement. This is an ongoing game; whether the police give up or the vendors locates another sidewalk (usually, the

19

Map of actors and their relations 20

police show the possible sidewalks and corners the vendors can inhabit) there is a constant interaction between the street food vendors and police force.

In Roosevelt Avenue, the negotiation for a position in public space has different levels of complexities. Many vendors know that if they respect all the regulations the city has imposed on them, they wouldn’t be able to sell in this particular street9. This is a delicate topic and a current concern for the vendors because if the BID was to expand and if it wouldn’t want the street vendors in the sidewalks, it could by law, get rid of most of them. Also, the vendors have seen how the creation of the BIDs around the city has segregated them from selling on the streets: displacement by city regulation laws or from a more informal spatial management and control of public space (Devlin, 2011) - such as private police harassments, planters and plazas.

Knowing that a possible displacement can occur has brought a lot of uncertainty to the street vendors and to the small local businesses.

The small and local businesses have seen how rent is getting higher every time, have created certain tactics to be able to continue to sell on the Roosevelt Avenue. For example, the business sub-rent a small space in the same store so they can divide the rent and services costs. On a store you can find on the right side a business of party and stationary and on the left a mobile phones and computers store. Also, tables are placed on the sidewalk near the stores to sell fruits, juices, bread, or any other good. The expansion of the space or the division of the space are both tactics local businesses are doing to be able to keep with the high rent prices. This is why many have united creating groups such as RACA-Roosevelt Avenue Community Alliance- and Vendedores Unidos (Vendors United), two organized groups that have arouse from the intent plan of the Jackson Heights Corona BID. Many other residents have also joint the groups arguing that street vending is an alternative for them to get goods and food10 that adapts to their budget, 9 The regulation that doesn’t allow a vendor to be within 20 feet from a storefront, is a regulation that most vendors break (in Roosevelt Avenue).

10 The street food and fruits and vegetables don’t have tax, making the products less expensive. There is also a direct relation with the vendor that

21

“until one day I had enough, and to a blonde policeman, those that are racist, he would always come and give me tickets, always, always, he would come and say, “I have to take you out of here because this is my area, and I have to kick you out ... he didn’t want to see me. Until one day he got me in a bad mood, I get off and tell him “what is the matter why do you want to kick me out, but no I’m not going anywhere because I have my permits and I have everything.”

Food Truck “but many time police harassment, took the food out, threw my containers, ‘get out of here’, many times, so people are like hey police,,rrrruuuu, running away”

NYCEDC

Local Business opposed to BID

Static cart without permit

WILLETS POINT

BID 82

Property owners opposed to BID

“The police bothers us but it is mostly because they like that you talk to them in English, that they will talk to you and you are able to communicate in English its ok, and they also like them to respect them. you shouldn’t be afraid because they are like us, and if you respect them, they will respect me”

STREET FOOD AND GOODS VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

RACA

It is through another person that I bought the cart and theSTREET permit FRUITS (what do you mean?) a person that works in AND VEGGIES this, was the one that helped me. (Is this one of the VENDORS WITH permits that are sold by ordinary people and not the PERMITTS city?) Yes, it is rented.

3,100 permits. This cap number has not changed since the 80’s creating a:

Food Truck

Food pushcart

VENDEDORES UNIDOS

Mobile cart without permit

Make the Road

POLICE

The 20 feet nobody makes it, all the vendors that are in Roosevelt nobody makes them...with the police, the police know, and they have told us. The meeting we had with them the last time. They told us that if they follow the law, there wouldn’t be any cart in Roosevelt Ave. that mean that they have been attainable to let us work, for the moment.

Junction Blvd Merchant Ass

Resident SBS CB4

NYCEDC WILLETS POINT

Local Business

Food pushcart

90 st plaza

Julissa Ferreras

CITY COUNCIL

DoT

Local

BID 82

Property

Property

“Now the police respect me, they say hi. (did they ever took you to jail?) Thousands of times, because of the food, I sold on the streets I did not have a permit, so they took me away. They would kick me… so many things that I have gone through here. It hasn’t been easy to sit here … they treated me like a delinquent”

“That is what kills the vendors, the permits that we have are from the veterans, people that don’t use them (what do you mean?), Yes of course, theFerreras owner of this permit, he is in his Julissa CITY COUNCIL house, he is chilling (ah so this is rented?). Yes. (...) I am telling you, I used to pay, two, three thousand, and now it is 20,000! (...) from that same Local Business with BID permit, they can make three or five, Property clon owners them...” they with BID

Corona plaza

Grow NYC

STREET FOOD VENDORS WITHOUT

RACA

Vamos Unidos

Food pushcart

STREET FOOD AND GOODS VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

STREET FRUITS AND VEGGIES VENDORS WITH

VENDEDORES UNIDOS

Queens Museum

Make the Road

POLICE

Street Vending Project

Junction Blvd Merchant Ass

“But the most expensive are those by the environmental they are 1,000 dollars a ticket, Imagines paying 1,000 dollars, one selling shish kebab … sometimes the DOH, Environmental Department that is what they do” “health department to be just, to be just, how is it possible, because, I believe, I think, I have everything very clean, I take out my glove to get the money, put it on to sell, and I think everything is fine, it is not just that they will come and give me a ticket of 1000 dollars. I don’t think its fair. That would be very good, because that takes away the inspiration of the people, that do not have opportunities, there are a lot of people that do not have papers, a lot of people that are criminalized, you can say it like that.”

DoH

Static cart without permit

Julissa Ferreras CITY COUNCIL 90 st plaza

WILLETS POINT

BID 82 STREET

Property owners opposed to BID

DoT Local Business with BID

Corona plaza

Property owners with BID

Grow NYC RACA

Vamos Unidos

Mobile cart without permit

STREET FOOD VENDORS WITHOUT PERMITS

STREET FOOD AND GOODS VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

STREET FRUITS AND VEGGIES VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

VENDEDORES UNIDOS

Queens Museum

Make the Road

POLICE

Street Vending Project

DoH

Junction Blvd Merchant Ass

DoH CB3

Resident

Fairness Coalition of Queens

CB3 SBS

SBS CB4

22

NYCEDC

Local Business opposed to BID

CB4

Resident

Fairness Coalition of Queens

“until one day I had enough, and to a blonde policeman, those that are racist, he would always come and give me tickets, always, always, he would come and say, “I have to take you out of here because this is my area, and I have to kick you out ... he didn’t want to see me. Until one day he got me in a bad mood, I get off and tell him “what is the matter why do you want to kick me out, but no I’m not going anywhere because I have my permits and I have everything.”

“many vendors, I don’t know if you have seen in Junction, the people that sell we need to have things clean, but those people go every night and leave a mess, that harms all of us. It harms the people, and that is why the policeman is in our necks”.

Julissa Ferreras

“but many time police harassment, took the food out, threw my containers, ‘get out of here’, many times, so people are like hey police,,rrrruuuu, running away”

“The police, yes. Always, they are coming and checking. But usually, I don’t have problems with them. Only when they send it to Local Business with BID me.... (Who sends it to you?) The Property owners neighbors, the same neighbors. with BID (The ones from the businesses, or the fruits?)The fruits [lowers STREET FRUITS AND VEGGIES her voice] (The fruits?) Yes.” VENDORS WITH

CITY COUNCIL

Food Truck NYCEDC

Local Business opposed to BID

Static cart without permit

WILLETS POINT

BID 82

Property owners opposed to BID

“The police bothers us but it is mostly because they like that you talk to them in English, that they will talk to you and you are able to communicate in English its ok, and they also like them to respect them. you shouldn’t be afraid because they are like us, and if you respect them, they will respect me”

STREET FOOD AND GOODS VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

RACA

VENDEDORES UNIDOS

Mobile cart without permit

Make the Road

POLICE

The 20 feet nobody makes it, all the vendors that are in Roosevelt nobody makes them...with the police, the police know, and they have told us. The meeting we had with them the last time. They told us that if they follow the law, there wouldn’t be any cart in Roosevelt Ave. that mean that they have been attainable to let us work, for the moment.

Resident SBS CB4

NYCEDC WILLETS POINT

Local Business

Food pushcart

90 st plaza

Julissa Ferreras

CITY COUNCIL

DoT

Food Truck

Julissa Ferreras CITY COUNCIL 90 st plaza

Local Business opposed to BID

BID 82

Property

Property

RACA

Vamos Unidos

RACA

Vamos Unidos

Food pushcart

STREET FOOD AND GOODS VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

STREET FRUITS AND VEGGIES VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

VENDEDORES UNIDOS

Queens Museum

Make the Road Junction Blvd Merchant Ass

Fairness Coalition of Queens

Resident

CB3 SBS CB4

Mobile cart without permit

Julissa Ferreras CITY COUNCIL 90 st plaza

NYCEDC

Local Business opposed to BID

Corona plaza

WILLETS POINT

BID 82 STREET

Property owners opposed to BID

DoT Local Business with BID

Corona plaza

Property owners with BID

Grow NYC RACA

Vamos Unidos

Street Vending Project

STREET FOOD AND GOODS VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

Street Vending Project

STREET FRUITS AND VEGGIES VENDORS WITH

VENDEDORES UNIDOS

Corona plaza

Property owners with BID

DoH

STREET FOOD VENDORS WITHOUT PERMITS

Queens Museum

STREET FOOD AND GOODS VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

STREET FRUITS AND VEGGIES VENDORS WITH PERMITTS

VENDEDORES UNIDOS

Make the Road

POLICE

Local Business with BID

BID 82

STREET FOOD VENDORS WITHOUT PERMITS

POLICE

Grow NYC

STREET FOOD VENDORS WITHOUT

DoT

Grow NYC

Food pushcart

Local

“Now the police respect me, they say hi. (did they ever took you to jail?) Thousands of times, because of the food, I sold on the streets I did not have a permit, so they took me away. They would kick me… so many things that I have gone through here. It hasn’t been easy to sit here … they treated me like a delinquent”

WILLETS POINT Property owners opposed to BID

PERMITTS

“The other lady that was beside me, the police gave her two ticket, each for 2,000 usd! (why) d:Junction Because of what I have told you, the police Blvd Merchant Ass to respect them, I don’t run away. like them why do I have to run away? he asks me ‘ do you have a permit’ and I say ‘yes’. and they are yeah ok, but the cart is not legal, but here the majority of people run away from the police, and they go out to see where they are at, and they don’t like that.” … “the lady run away and stepped beside me you know, so that they would bother me too, that is what happens when you do that”

NYCEDC

Street Vending Project

DoH

Queens Museum

Make the Road

POLICE

Junction Blvd Merchant Ass

Junction Blvd Merchant Ass

DoH CB3

SBS

Resident

Fairness Coalition of Queens

Appropriations Tensions

CB4

CB3

Resident

Fairness Coalition of Queens

SBS CB4

23

Ecuador delicacies 27 years on the same corner

24

Selling Ecuadorian food- from pig’s head, to tripe, to corn to picada- Costanza passes her days in the same corner she set foot on over 27 years ago. She has seen the neighborhood change, seen how the Cuban place turned into a Colombian restaurant, how the Italians left for other neighborhoods, and how more tourists are now coming by. She has seen her smallest daughter grow up on that same sidewalk. From her first experience in a supermarket where she bought cat food instead of a can of tuna, Costanza has come a long way. She was the first vendor on that block and in that spot in NYC. She has fought for this spot many times and it is the same corner she has walked ever since she arrived in the United States. This spot is indeed an extension of herself. Mother of seven with no help from the father, Costanza has made a living selling food on the streets. She has never learned English, and as she says, she came here to work not to learn. She started selling tamales out of a small basket. At first she didn’t know how to make them and she called her mother for help. Back home she didn’t cook, she had help in her house that took charge of the household. Once she mastered the tamales she moved on with other Ecuadorian delicacies. It wasn’t easy, and as she remembers her first years, tears come down her checks. Police harassment was frequently, destroying her food and taking her to jail; but Costanza never gave up her corner. She traded the metal trays for disposable aluminum ones, just in case the police came the economic loss wouldn’t be so hard. She also developed a relationship with the police officers who have sent her to jail, and has gotten Chinese or McDonalds from them every time they caught her so she wouldn’t be hungry.

She has fought for her recognition and has advocated for Roosevelt Avenue, going to the mayor’s office to argue and claim better services, sewage cleaning and waste pickups. The neighbors know her and everybody around passes by waving their hands or heads. Costanza sits patiently in a small bench every day waiting for people to come and try her food. As customers approach Constanza’s cart a big and welcoming smile that lightens her eyes appears in her face.

Maria has been selling nuts, churros, and chips for 20 years. She decided to start working on the street after several jobs as a waitress where sexual harassment from the customers was frequently. Maria learned how to make chips and nuts thanks to a Mexican compadre that taught her how to make them. She started in Jackson Heights, but was displaced by a police officer who later point out a possible corner she could sell, which is where she is currently. Though her first corner was much better, as there were more pedestrians, she decided she preferred not to have trouble with the authorities. Maria first started with her cart permit and hired a person that had a license; she would tell the policeman that he was her husband in order for her to be able to work with the cart. As she remembers, she said before that the police weren’t so strict and didn’t bother her that much.

She has had tensions with her neighboring vendors, to the point that they have called the police just to accuse her of appropriating space. The plastic she sets every fall and winter next to her cart trouble some. She uses it as a tent to cover herself from the freezing cold and rain. The fruit vendors that are next to her usually assemble plastic when it rains, but attach them from to the signs of local businesses or to he urban material infrastructure. Going beyond the cart or stand limits is illegal, and you can get ticketed for it. In Maria’s case, because the plastic is tied up from her cart in the regular dimensions, she can make use of it. Nonetheless, she gets reprimanded. Maria tries to unite all the vendors, but she says that dealing with the fruits and vegetables stands has been complicated. Since they are there, she has noticed that the presence of the DoH is more frequent fining her for the 20 feet law that she breaks (as most of the vendors in Roosevelt Avenue).

If things continue to be like this she thinks it is most likely that she will have to look for an alternative corner.

The tensions between the other street vendors have just gotten worse every time, and she thinks that if they don’t unite as a collective group it will be very difficult to fight for their rights. Maria doesn’t give up though; she has recently joined advocating groups such as the Street Vending Project and Vendedores Unidos (a local group that started because of the BID expansion) and is one of the most active members in the area. She is willing to listen and to fight for her rights on the streets.

Ecuador delicacies 27 years on the same corner

25

but as a consumer said, “it also is to support my people.”

The unity is only with the vendors that have a permit. In the negotiation of space, there is a hierarchy on who has a saying on what is to be done, and the alternative modes of vending (non-permit vendors) are low in the hierarchy scale. This does not mean they do not negotiate their access to public space, but their negotiation is more tactical.

Navigating the (in)formal: Understanding the everyday tactics

The formal, as explained before are all those strategies made by power entities, in this case the council city and other power entities.

In New York there are many entities that control the street food vendors. The Department of Health, the police, Parks and Recreation, the Consumers Affairs and Environmental Control Boards; all have a say on how, when, where and what street vendors can do. All these regulations are usually given to the cart, making it a mechanism of control. With all the regulations and permissions, many tactics emerge as counterattack to the strategies.

Many of these new forces are not legal, but are rather tactics that have come about due to the over regulated laws. The 3,100 caps on permits of street food vendors in New York have not changed since the Koch administration in the early 80’s. This limited number has opened a black market for permit renting which is so common that is thought of as more of a “secondary market”. This method of permit distribution -which most interviews pointed the veterans as being the source of the black market11- rents permits for exorbitant sums that go creates a space to bargain. The bargain usually happens with the fruits and vegetables stands. It is also pertinent to say that these stands do have very comfortable prices, but the freshness and quality of what is sold is very questionable.

11 The veterans do have priority in the waiting list and there are about 100 food-vending permits specifically for veterans. However, many interviewees pointed out the veterans to be renting the permits, this information has not been corroborated and it is still unknown if the veterans do make part of the

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Time spend on the street The alternative modes of vending and the permit vendors have different schedules. The first set of vendors move around the city in a visible/invisible relation. The second set, are always in the same location and their spot on the street is identified as theirs by the other inhabitants.

“at three I have to get this little cart and move, don’t know where, but I have to move. Over there they don’t bother you, but here, uhh, it is prohibited. The ones that are ambulatory can’t sell here, what can I tell you, laws are laws”

Moving by the hour The everyday tactics are concern with time. Street food vendors without permits need to know at what time the police usually go by, at what time is the best time for selling, at what hour they should move.

In this case, the vendors know that at 3 p.m they have to move from Roosevelt Avenue to other streets.

from $15,000 to $25,000 for a two-year permit. The city, on the other hand, sells the permits for 200 dollars for the same time period. It later needs to be renewed, but this renewal does not ask for the person with the permit to do it and anyone can go in his or her name, which has made it easier for the black market to continue happening. The limited cap has therefore created this new type of market that has harmed the street food vendors, adding an exaggerated additional cost. From all the interviews with to street vendors with permits, all of the vendors rented their permit from the black market. There was only one case, where a vendor had “won the lottery”- which meant he had won a spot with a city permit- and they were undergoing the entire process to legalize his place in the street. His name had been in the list ever 199712. Before that permit, he had been vending without the obligatory city requirements, making him vulnerable to police harassment. Indeed, the black market crosses many levels of illegality. In some cases, the permits from the black market have been cloned and the same permit is multiplied through any of the boroughs.

The city’s permits process is demanding in a way and very time consuming. First, prospective vendors have no other option, that to obtain a permit, as there aren’t any spots open and the waiting list already has more than 2,080 people waiting to be called. But if by any chance you had registered your name and won the lottery, you would enter a process that is very time consuming and adds other layers and costs to the business. The process itself might not be that stressful, but having to deal with all the regulations concerning the cart, the spot, the parking lot and the transportation creates another level of preoccupation. The permits are only for the cart; there is even another step to get the license, which is for the right for an individual to sell food on the street.

The license is not very difficult to acquire since the Bloomberg black market.

12 The waiting list nowadays is for more than 2,080 people. People on the list are sometimes family members, this is not only to increase the probability of winning the lottery, but also as the black market has gotten to be such a great business, families are aiming to acquire permits to rent.

27

administration allowed making the process to be initiated with an IRS number and not a social security number. This has made it easier for many vendors to find jobs. Nonetheless, there are many regulations around the license. The vendors have to have it in a visible place, falling to do so, will conclude in a ticket (even though they present it and show it to the policeman later). To be able to acquire a license vendors need to register and pass the food-handling exam (Cost $53.00 US dollars) and then pay $10 dollars for the non-processed food license, and $50 for the processed food license, which needs to be renewed every two years.

There is a difference between the vendors with a permit and the vendors without. The vendors that have permits are in the same spot everyday and have a constant schedule. The ice cream carts are probably the only vendors with permits that can move around in Roosevelt Avenue. Their negotiation to access space is completely different from those vendors that don’t have a permit. As these vendors have a legal status in the street, the regulated institutions are also different for those that have an alternative mode of vending. Having all the required permissions to be in the street enables them to feel certain about belonging in space, but that does not necessarily reduce the problems and tensions that street food vendors have to deal with on an everyday basis.

For other set of vendors who don’t have a permit13, being in the street is riskier. Because their relation to space and people is different, being able to create a trust relation is more difficult. Unfortunately there weren’t many interviews conducted with the people of this sector and conversational rapport was the best method that worked to be able to understand their negotiation with space14. The alternative modes of vending on Roosevelt Avenue are mostly practice by women who usually have a shopping or laundry cart that is pushed around to different spots during the day15. They sell tamales in huge kitchen

13 The mobile vendors don’t have a permit, but some do have the license.

Others don’t have either.

14 There was only one interview that was made.

15 This is true for this particular area and through the lens of food vending

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“They therefore arrange themselves accordingly, internalizing the variegated geography of anti-vending sentiment and effectively policing themselves... the geography of street food vending in New York is the consequences of innumerable episodes of individual conflicts and selective enformcement; it is an urbanism produced informally through techniques of intimidation, harrasment, discipline and evasion.” (Devlin, 2011)

From one corner to another The street vendors without permits learn from experiences from the everyday where they can be. In this case, the vendor moves from one spot to the next depending on the hour (in rush hour she moves closer to the subway station).

After many days and problems with the police, she notices it is better to cross the street south of Roosevelt Avenue where there is another police precinct is in charge that is not around as often as the other one.

pots, hot chocolate, obleas, corn and grilled chuzos made from pork, beef or chicken. They create portable kitchens made from dispensable aluminum trays or pots were they put the hot charcoal and a grill on top to start cooking, or they have everything prepared in containers that fit the cart (usually huge pots with lids). Only two males could be identified as non-permit food vendors who haved a more static cart.

The presence on the street of the non-permit vendors exposes them to many risks, but selling is another way for them to generate an income perhaps the only option they can find to be able to sustain themselves.

There are some recurrent patterns with the alternative modes of vending; though they have more risk to be in a noticeable space, it seems that this risk is often disregarded and a visible location is preferred to attract clients. This is true for most street vendors who position themselves in recurrent pedestrian spaces, such as subway stations, to have more opportunity to sell. The non-permit street vendors’ mobility depends mostly on schedules and it is something that is learned thought the everyday practice. Many non-permit vendors position themselves only at lunchtime (in the case of the 82 street that with the Elmhurst Hospital); others decide to be present during rush hours when people are going to or coming from work; others have learned to move around space, avoiding police and other regulating entities. Rush hour in this particular area starts at five in the morning and in the afternoon starts from four to eight. The time patterns are very important to understand how the alternative modes of street vending relate to space. In fact, time is very important to understand the tactics that happen in the everyday. As one vendor explained, they know that on weekends at three P.M. the police go through Roosevelt Avenue, which is why at that time they move south to another street and come back once they know the police have passed by. In other cases, the community will help them by yelling “van” to advise them the police are near. In this case they have to move fast and hide. Their way of selling gives them freedom to move around if the business is not good on that particular street or corner, and to have a flexible schedule, but they also have a greater risk of being caught by the police. Because only. There are many multiple vendors in Roosevelt Avenue that move around restaurants and stores selling merchandise.

this form of vending is illegal in New York City, getting caught might end them up in jail. This relationship with “visible-invisibility16” is another way of negotiating and navigating through space that connects many of the social relations and networks created in public space.

Interestingly, the mobile street vendors are located in what seems to be the more regulated areas, such as the pop-up plazas, Junction Boulevard and the existing 82nd Street BID. This could be because in those regulated areas there is less street vending competition that might offer them a better chance of selling; or it could be that there is tension whenever a non-permit vendor approaches a permit vendor. It could also be that because these regulated spaces have created their own services- such as garbage cleaning and occasional private police- the authorities don’t bother to go there, as there is already a present authority in that area. However, such explanations have not been supported by observation. What was observed is that there weren’t many spaces where permit and non-permit vendors worked in the same area.

As Devlin comments, street food vendors navigate and position themselves in space accordingly, internalizing the variegated geography of antivending sentiment and effectively policing themselves... the geography of street food vending in New York is the consequences of innumerable episodes of individual conflicts and selective enforcement; it is an urbanism produced informally through techniques of intimidation, harassment, discipline and evasion (Devlin, 2011:59) I would add that navigating the (in)formal is a learned experience from the everyday.

16 Being in a heavy traffic pedestrian zone visible to the passersby but at the

same time in a safe zone of police harassment and danger of getting caught is very interesting in the street vendors dynamic. They play a visible and invisible game. They have to move around temporalities and understand the spatial configuration (political, social, economic, to name a few) to truly understand where and what time they can be in the streets selling goods.

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Claiming Spaces: New Opportunities to Create Public Place

Holston (1999) makes a great point when he states that

city design has always focused on fixing the future and preserving the past, but has always failed to see the present. Planning has thus been informed by the idea of a conflict-less society (Holston, 1999). Understanding the (in)formalities is then crucial to first truly understand alternative modes of constructing a future, but also to understand the conflicts that are inherent in every society.

The expansion of the 82nd Street BID will bring huge changes in the way the population interacts with the public space. Many of the cultural values that are now inscribed in this place will be erased, and many of the local businesses will have to close to give up their space for bigger and wealthier corporations. The idea of safety and sanitized space that the BID strongly boosts is one idea that captures the “imagination of the ruling elites” (Robles-Duran, 2013) and is so subjective that, as many street vendors argue, “What does ‘clean’ mean?” These sanitized ideas of public space also abolish the cultural negotiations of space produced on Roosevelt Avenue.

The BID expansion project mirrors many of the problems that theorists have written about on public space; nonetheless the BID project has tried to find a common ground for conciliation between different stakeholders. The BID is willing to open a space for street vendors to participate on the board of directors, but many street vendors do not feel represented and don’t think one vendor is enough.

The expansion of the BID has thus created a space for negotiation and a space for groups to come together for a collective objective, it has also bridged the gap between the different cultural nationalities that, though living in the same territory, have a very disjunctive relation.

Claims, as Mandanipour (2010) suggests, can be made by powerful individuals and institutions, but can also be made by small organizations and individuals who want to shape their own space.

These claims can determine and imagine how they want their public

30

Carolina, an obleas vendor, moves around the public space looking for a good location to sell, but hiding from the police and the authorities. She pushes her laundry cart every afternoon until she reaches her usual spot.

She tries not to move that much because she has a limp in her left leg that prevents her from bending her knee; this incapacity has made her look for different ways of earning a living. She moves through space in a game of visible-invisible that is very recurrent for many mobile street vendors and immigrants. She started not very long ago, but already has had some encounters with police and other street food vendors. Whenever the police approach her, she tries different tactics. She first talks in English, as she said it was a way of respecting the officer, but at the same time it’s a way of showing the police officer that she has been living here for a while. She says many of them don’t like it when people speak Spanish, and many are racists. Then, she will show a picture of her son who is a police officer in Vermont. This sometimes will help her to not get fined. But it hasn’t been the case lately, as one specific officer has constantly threatened her to leave the space. Carolina sells in a vibrant street where street vendors are not allowed; it is one of the few streets in Queens that is restricted from street vending. She is thus obliged not only to find tactics to keep out of the eyes of the police, but also to govern a spot in the merchant association street. She usually gives obleas to owners of the shops and builds a friendship with them. Lately, as the police have harassed her, she has decided to move south, crossing Roosevelt Avenue, where there is another police precinct that is not as strict as the one just across the street. After her constant confrontations, and her everyday living she now positions herself in a public space that is visible to the customers, but not as risky for her.

space to look; the absence of them, however, can also determine the future of a space (Mandanipour, 2010). The design of the city is a field of contestation between different actors; nonetheless, in the case of Roosevelt Avenue, the actors are being active in the decision of their space making. This active citizenship brings a space for opportunity for the community to unite and to create new projects around their collective imaginary of space. These claims are therefore a living exercise of the right to the city that Harvey incessantly argues for, and represent a possibility for “collective action to create something radically different.� (Harvey, 2012:xvii)

The city is a dynamic landscape always reinventing itself, generating new cartographies and new forms to navigate it. The social infrastructure that has been developed in response to the expansion of the BID opens the doors for new opportunities to rethink the possibility of the BID and the privatization of the public space. If the expansion of the BID was predominately made to counterattack the Willets Point development, the new social infrastructure that has been made can make the same resonance but from a community base initiative that involves more than just business and property owners, but the whole residential community that are the ones that should have a greater saying in what is to be done to their public space. This community based organized groups can demand from the city all the services the BID is proposing, or they could create a volunteer based programs that shape their public space how they would like them to be. For this to be able to happen there needs to be a new platform or stage where people can get together and decide what should be done, it should be a place where knowledge can be transmitted, where dialogue and discussion are part of the everyday in pro of a common goal. The expansion of the BID has become a platform to discuss important issues in the community and a greater discussion about the public space, but there needs to be another platform that can discuss other alternatives and defy other notions of public.

Street vendors are insurgent citizens that question and subvert the strategies. In Roosevelt Avenue the street food vendors make part of an immigrant groups that searches for ways of belonging and ways to be accounted. They navigate the city with a different perception; the

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public sidewalk is their work area, and not just a transitional point or a place for leisure. They struggle with the formal and employ different tactics to govern a spot. The various appropriations that are engaged on a daily basis to negotiate their space is an ongoing struggle with the city but also -and even more if the expansion of the BID is to occur- with private property interests.

The various negotiations documented in the research process are just a few of what happens in the everyday life. The various strategies employed by the city and the power entities will always have a counterattack from the people that convert a space into a place New events, new technologies, new ways of responding to the neoliberalization of public space, new forms of social organization … are always creating alternative new spaces of and for public political expression … whatever the deadening weight of heightened representation and control over public space, spontaneous and organized political response always carries within it the capability of remaking and retaking public spaces and the public sphere. (Low and Smith, 2006:16).

Public spaces are different everywhere, in general we should not be talking of public spaces, but rather of public places as many scholars have advocated the difference between the two terms- space and place- (Massey, 1994; Agnew, 2011; Tuan 1977; Taylor, 2000). The first “denotes a location defined by abstract geometries of distance and direction” (Neil, 2010:3) while the second one is a specific location embedded with meanings and symbol that are attributed by the users (Neil, 2010:3). Tensions exist between both of the concepts, and as Taylor (2000) argues, both space and place can be and act as the same.

Nonetheless, whenever we think of public space, it is always with the abstraction of a not very defined area, and the idea of place does not come into our minds. It is in this separation of the lived experiences and meanings that I believe there is a problem of what public space is. It is not only a problem of the fluctuating character space has, but also an oblivious attention to the people and their attach meaning to a specific site.

As urban theorist and practitioners we should not be talking about public spaces but rather about public places evidencing and applauding to the differences in every place and to the constructions

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and meanings the people have embedded in them. The tension between those that produce space and those that built place (Taylor, 2000:548) would be less obvious if the design of cities is between the people that live those places and not through the imagine paradigms of a few that just see spaces. This is not to say that the places are dislocated from a greater systemic process and a connectivity city, but just to have a greater emphasis in the production of space the people have created. In this sense the gap between the theory and everyday practice narrows down.

Notes: From when this piece was written December 2013 till the current day May 2014 many things have changed concerning the BID. There is still hasn’t been a voting on whether or not the BID is to be implemented. And have postponed the decision until July 2014. Julissa Ferrera is still the councilwomen for District 21, but also is the new Finance Chair to the De Blasio’s government.

Make the Road, that last year supported the BID is now against according to the vendors. RACA separated because of ideological differences between the member according to Rafael Samanez, and created two organizations against the BID: RACA and Queens Neighborhood United.

A new law ticketing the permit owner and not the license vendor is being taken forward by the DoH. This will relieve the vendor for having to pay extraordinary amount of tickets they deal with in their everyday, but rises many question on how this would be carried along when most of the permits in NYC are rented in the Black Market, how will this negotiation be with the renter and the owner of the permit? And is this a strategy to put more pressure to the existing vendors and maybe displace them?

Social Infrastructure The expansion of the BID brings many questions to the table about the future of public space and street vendors in Roosevelt Avenue. As it has been a controversial project it has also brought the citizens to claim their right to the city organizing around a common topic and picturing a future.

Pedro, a street vendor, is no longer selling this tortas. After his permit was due on October 2013 he could not find a decent prize in the overprized rented permits distribution; he had to abandoned his truck and is now working as a cook in a restaurant near Junction Blvd.

References:

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Barlet, J. (2013, September 12). Some protest Roosevelt Avenue business improvement district. Queens Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www. qchron.com/editions/western/some-protest-roosevelt-avenue-businessimprovement-district/article_dde428bc-0150-5a58-b4c9-8d1eb3636e6f. html

Getreuer-Kargl,I. (2012) Gendered Modes of appropriating public space. In Brumann, C. (Ed) (2012) Urban Spaces in Japan: Cultural and social perspectives. Routledge. Pp.167-183.

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and incorporations of gated communities. In S. Low & N. Smith (Eds.), The Politics of Public Space. S. New York: Routledge. Pg. 81-104 Mandanipour, A. (2010). Whose public space? In Mandanipour, A. (Ed.), Whose public space?: International case studies in urban design and development. New York: Routledge.

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theory and spatial dimensions. Madrid: Iberoamericana Libros.

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New York: Routledge. Pp.22‐240.

Rapoport, A. (1980). Cross-cultural aspects of environmental design. In Rapoport, A., Altman, I. and Wohlwill, J.K. (Eds.), Human Behavior and environment: environment and culture. Plenum Press. Pg. 7-45 Robles-Duran, M. (2013). For the Brief moments of Confrontation. In Ferguson, Urban Drift Project in cooperation with the Berlin Senate for Urban Development (Eds.), Make Shifts City, Renegotiating the Urban Common.

Berlin: Jovis Publishers Sánchez, A. I. (2013, February 5). Immigrant entrepreneurship and the city. QueensLatino. Retrieved from http://www.queenslatino.com/ Taylor, P. J. (2000) Havens and cages: Reinventing states and households in the modern world-syste. Journal of World Systems Research Festschrift for Immanuel Wallerstein, Part 1 XI(2), Retrieved from http://jwsr.ucr.edu The street vending project. (n.d.). Retrieved from Streetvendor.org Torre, S. (1996). Claiming the public space: mother of Plaza de Mayo. In Argrest, D. (Ed.), The sex of architecture. Harry N. Abrams.

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Viteri, M.A. (2011). Nostalgia, Food and Belonging: Ecuadorians in New York City. In S. Albiez et al. (Eds.), Ethnicity, citizenship and belonging: practices,

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Spatial Subversion

The thesis of the project proposed that architecture must be catalytic to be both a reactionary and propositional tool for the people informally navigating the political system and social sphere.

In this regard, architecture would be the transient mechanism and inclusionary tool for defending the metamorphic nature of the people’s interests and demands. As a research of the play between architecture and policy, street food vending is a specific scenario for unraveling this investigation as the street cart itself is a mechanism of control of the vendors and their ability to sell.

By imagining the street cart beyond the cart itself, this project proposes to utilize architecture as a medium for street food vendors to place pressure on the legal boundaries that confine them and to become invulnerable to such imposing agency.

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OATH: Office of Administrative Trials & Hearings

Street Ve Proje (SVP Vamos Unidos Vending Prohibited Within 20 Feet of Residential Building Exits Vending Prohibited Next to No-Standing Zones at Hospitals and Health Facilities Changes to Multiple Offense Schedule Vending in bus stop, sidewalk next to a hospital or health facility no standing zone or within 10 ft. of driveway, subway, crosswalk, [etc.]

Green Cart umbrella not opened while vending 24 RCNY [6-01 (m)] 6-07(b) Green Cart umbrella not safely secured or in good condition or repair 24 RCNY [6-01 (m)] 6-07(b) Stand or goods against display window or within 20 ft. of entrance of any building or within 20 feet from exits, including service exits, to buildings that are exclusively residential at street level Admin. Code 20-465(d) Vending in bus stop, taxi stand, sidewalk next to a hospital or health facility no standing zone, or within 10 ft. of drive/subway/corner Admin. Code 20-465(e) Vending within 20 ft. of sidewalk cafes; within 5 ft of bus shelters, newsstands, public telephones, disabled access ramps Admin. Code 20-465(q)

Permit decal not visible and/or obstructed.

24 RCNY 6-04(b)(3)

$500

Using mobile unit for sleeping or residential purposes 24 RCNY 6-04

Vending non-food items 24 RCNY 6-03(f)

Unit exceeds length or width restrictions or longer side of unit not placed parallel to curb 24 RCNY 6-06(a)

$200

Food contact surfaces not maintained in good repair, or not clean 24 RCNY 6-04(a) Non-food contact surfaces not maintained in good repair or not clean 24 RCNY 6-04(b)

$275 $200

Insufficient ventilation 24 RCNY 6-04(d)

Insufficient lighting or unshielded light bulbs 24 RCNY 6-04(c)

No partition or a partition without a self-closing door installed in truck 24 RCNY 6-04(b)(4)

$200

Insufficient or no potable water 24 RCNY 6-04(f)

$275

$200

Handwash sink inaccessible or unobstructed 24 RCNY 6-04(i)(1)(A)

$500 $500

No "wash hands" sign posted.

24 RCNY 6-04(i)(1)(F)

No soap, paper towel/other hand drying device 24 RCNY 6-04(i)(1)(E)

Insufficient or no potable running water for handwash sink.

24 RCNY 6-04(i)(1)(B)

$500

No thermometers in cold or hot storage units 24 RCNY 6-04(l)(1)

$500

$200

Commissary contract not kept on unit or made available for inspection 24 RCNY 6-11(g)

Unit unsecured when left unattended more than 30 minutes.

24 RCNY 6-04(p)

$200 $500 $200

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Environmental Control Board Promulgation of Rule July 3, 2013

hearing

gives vendor a ticket provide legal assistance to advocate against and fight tickets

PHYSICALITY

s public

Police Officer

LAWS & REGULATIONS E

Promulgates the following rule that amends Section 3-107 of Subchapter G of Chapter 3 of Title 48 of the Rules of the City of New York (“Food Vendor Administrative Code Penalty Schedule”) and Section 3-109 of Subchapter G of Chapter 3 of Title 48 of the Rules of the City of New York (“General Vendor Penalty Schedule.

Proposed Rule October 16, 2013

Multiple Offense Schedule (MOS) Health Code Chapter 6

17-325: Penalties Legislation: Int. No. 434-A NON-PROCESSING

tend tative at represen

Rules of the City of New York (RCNY) FOOD CONTACT SURFACES NON-FOOD CONTACT SURFACES

Laws of New York PROCESSING C

Local Law to Amend Section 17-325

D

Intro 324

Permit regular inspections Provide to the commissioner or officer name of commissary Do not use unauthorized food Surrender license upon revocation, suspension or expiration 17-314: Duties of licensees and permittees.

Loc

B

ctio d Se en Am w to al La

City Council Committe on Consumer Affairs A

Committe on Immigration

License must be worn on being Permit must be fixed to the cart 17-311: Display of license or plate.

New York City Administrative Code (NEW)

n

07 17-3

17-307: Licenses, permits required; restrictions; term.

Subchapter 2: Food Vendor

17-308: Fees

17-315: Restrictions on the placement of vehicles and pushcarts

Community District 3 $500,000 discretionary funds

NYC Plaza Program

Andy Wiley-Schwartz, an assistant commissioner

Councilman Daniel Dromm

$2 Million

Department of Transportation

DIVERSITY PLAZA (37th Road Pedestrian Plaza)

Jackson Heights Beautification Group

SUKHI NY: Social Uplift through Knowledge & Hope Initiatives

TAKES CARE OF PLANS EVENTS FOR

PRODUCED

Department of Consumer Affairs

VENDOR

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT Department of Health and Hygiene

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

World Health Organization (WHO)

Hibridos Collective Jackson Heights Arts Festival

Commissary/ Food Manufacturer Cart Manufacturer

Restaurants

Queens Council on the Arts

OPPOSITION

F

RO

DE

UN

FO

Political and Communal Programming Work around immigration rights and reform for the neighborhood

FOUNDER OF

Restricted Streets

Neighborhood Plaza Partnership Advisory Board

NYC Gov.

Bronx River Alliance HR&A Advisors NYC Department of Parks New York Restoration Project Trust for Public Land Horticultural Society of New York Institute for Transportation & Development Policy New Yorkers for Parks MIG Planning & Design Capalino+Company Time Times Square Alliance Day NYC DOT Location

Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Queens Agha Saleh Internet CafĂŠ owner

Shazia Kausar Bombay Chat cafĂŠ owner

new crime

business dropped

Mohammed Pier president of the Jackson Heights Bangladeshi Business Association customers come to shop, not sit

endor ect P)

Shiv Dass Jackson Heights Merchants Association hurting businesses

http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/08/20/jackson-heights-turnaround-business-owners-will-help-maintain-plaza/ http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131014/jackson-heights/diversity-plaza-get-more-seating-improved-lighting

Spatial Subversion This diagram holistically showcases the following topics to come from situating the vendor in law, to specific laws, and to specifcally the site of Diversity Plaza.

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II [a]: OBJECTS/SPACE What is space? How is it constructed?

The definition of space is “the unlimited or incalculable great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur.” (Dictionary.com online dictionary, n.d) However, does it serve the question well to simplify into broad terms and abstractions?

The beginning of this study was sparked by the question for how the mobile street food vendor carves spaces within a compressed space regulated by numerous systems and agencies in New York City.

To explore this question, what can be understood from illustrating and dissecting space? The word “space” is a buzzword that is instantaneously understood and glossed over in conversation, but what does it actually mean? How is it interpreted? How is it useful?

Space is constructed by some, left for others to interpret.

Beginning with the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s (CUP) project for Making Policy Public, CUP collaborated with the Street Vendor Project (SVP) to develop a fold-out pamphlet titled “Vendor Power” that will inform the vendor of his or her rights visually. (Vendors Power!, n.d) Specifically, the fold-out distills dense city regulation to diagram the amount of space, using the metrics of feet and inches, in which the vendor may occupy the street. This publication makes visible the compounding pressures that limit the vendors’ use of space that would otherwise be difficult to determine--to quantify space that is allowed to be used on the sidewalk. Space in this instance is representative and the resultant of the political pressure and regulation.

Because this “space” is not automatically visible and understood, how does one visualize and analyze space in other scenarios?

Architect Lebbeus Woods ponders space through both architecture and writing. Specifically his article “The Question of Space,” Woods (2009) analyzes how space is perceived and interpreted. Heading the article, Woods presents a planar, abstract drawing to introduce his thoughts.

“How do we know that what we see is not an artifice of projections onto the brain? Ultimately, we do not. Space, in the end, is what we think it is.” (Woods, 2009)

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Woods then interestingly transposes this statement against virtuality and reality, tapping into ideas of memory and space. He compares the vividness of Piranesi’s paintings to that of the movies to that of the computer. Resultant of this line of thinking, we, the audience reading the article, are left to wonder then: what is real? Such a question is equally lofty to the question of space. Woods recognizes this and leaves the audience that because space and reality as concepts appear beyond tangibility, we latch onto the limitations perceived to attempt to define them.

Moving forward with the concepts of perception and understanding information shared and transferred, there was a brief moment in which the transferral and receipt of that knowledge occurs.

In Simon Sadler’s complication of Archigram’s work in “Architecture Without Architecture,” (2005) Sadler’s annotates work such as the PlugIn City and includes theory reminiscent of the 1960s era the group was situated. To pull one quote:

The deficiency of words, symbols, and visual information is that they cannot communication experience from one person to another. We can agree to agree, but there remains only mutual incomprehension. You only know what you like of what you know. Yet there is that desperation of trying to communicate to reach some understanding of one another’s understanding and preconception. We must submit to cause and effect to higher education. We must construct a living paradox which is able to recognize conflict without emotion. (Sadler, 2005:137).

How do we compensate for those differences? Thinking about how space, or information, is interpreted and who has a voice in such decisions, one can reference Donna Haraway’s “ Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” (1988) Haraway speaks to not only the conversations of space but the limitations that Woods alludes to in order to grasp and relate to space. She says:

Their boundaries exist in social interaction. Boundaries are drawn by mapping practices; (…) “objects do not preexist

Social Striation This was an early exploration of overlaying photographs take on site over the five boroughs to show the social fabric of the city.

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as such. Objects are boundary projects. But boundaries shift from within; boundaries are very tricky. What boundaries provisionally contain remains generative, productive of meanings, and bodies. Siting [sighting] boundaries is a risky practice” (Haraway, 1988:595).

Does that mean the creation, or the definition, of space is risky practice? Would it be risky because conflict of interest becomes visible, or would it be risky because such conflicts are generally in flux? Or, both? There seems to be the distinction of what form does space take and who is making those decisions. In this case, is space an object? Is space information manifested as object as Lebbeus Woods describes?

Reading “A Thousand Plateaus,” Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987) create philosophical inquiries of space through tangible, physical examples. In particular, the chapter, “The Smooth and the Striated” discusses multiple manners in which the concepts can be applied elsewhere.

Using fabric as their mechanism to explain smooth and striated, smooth is nomadic and equivalent to the fusion and consistency of fibers in felt. Striation refers to the woven fabric, or patchwork quilt of multiple entities work independently to create the whole. However, it is impossible to explain the striated without the smooth. Deleuze and Guattari state:

Yet the two are linked and give each other impetus. Nothing is ever done with. Smooth space allows itself to be striated, and striated space reimparts a smooth space, with potentially different values, scopes, and signs. Perhaps we must say that all progress is made by and in striated space, but all becoming occurs in smooth space. (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 486).

Because of striation and smooth bleed into one another, it’s difficult to decipher between the two. However, Deleuze and Guattari further explain the concept in saying:

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The sea is a smooth space fundamentally open to striation, and the city is the force of striation that reimparts smooth

space, puts it in back in operation everywhere, on earth and in other elements outside but also inside itself. The smooth spaces arising from the city are not only those of worldwide organization, but also a counter attack combining the smooth and the holey and turning back against the town; sprawling temporary, shifting shanty towns of nomads and cave dwellers, scrap metal and fabric, patchwork to which the striations of money, work, or housing are no longer even relevant. (p. 481)

When applied to a relatable subject such as the city, one can look beyond the terminology of smooth, and striated to understand that there are conflicting paradoxical relationships and systems shaped by and shaping the object. The in this case, the object would be the built landscape of the city, Deleuze and Guattari focus on the people in the city attempting to mesh within, while people are also being pushed into the periphery as a result as well. Both systems point to alternative economic models to survive the disadvantage of the other (capitalism).

To return to the work of Lebbeus Woods, Woods wrote another article titled “Walls of Change.” In the article, Woods describes space, or regulation as manifested through a wall and its consequent effects.

Woods (2010) begins his passage with a photo of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989 and with:

Walls are meant to separate, that is true. After all, it is an essential mission of the architect to ‘define space’ which means to construct limits, edges, boundaries that carve out particular pieces of undifferentiated space for human purposes.

Woods then moves forward to describe the essential aspects of the materiality of the wall and how the wall can be an “armature for change.” His drawings to follow display the repurposing of the walls of a decaying city and the reimagining of new spaces for interaction. What are tangible examples for which walls, the constructors of space, can become this “armature of change?” Focusing on the wall since it delineates space figuratively and literally, Scott Shall (2010) with the International Design Clinic (IDC) created the fencePocket to explode a

wall’s function and perception. Since walls, and fences, define the hard edge between different ownerships of property, the project proposed by the IDC leeches onto the chain-link fence as the ownership is considered ambiguous. Students and mentors involved with the International Design Clinic designed a manual for which anyone can use strips of recycled fabric to weave benches, planters, and so forth into the fence, challenging the use and image of the fence.

As a larger scale maneuver, Santiago Cirugeda and Recetas Urbanas test the regulations for which new spaces can be built. The project “Building Yourself an Urban Reserve” is also a manual for constructing space, giving the reader/actor a step-by-step process for which one can use the regulations affiliated with scaffolding to build anew.

Urban Recipes Santiago Cirugeda & Recetas Urbanas; “Building Yourself an Urban Reserve.”

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II [b]: Biological Relationships

TION

IO N

ERAC

RA CT

IC INT

IN TE HI C NO

INDIR ECT T

N

0+

IO

COMMENSALISM

CT RA

ROPH

TE IN

OP

IC

PH

TR

RO

0

TT

PROPHESIS

C RE

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SYMBIOSIS DI

In order to understand the vendor within the broader scope of space, it is important to note that the perception of the role of the vendor within the urban realm may be positive, negative, or neutral due to his or her active engagements of others in that space. The vendor’s interaction with the urban can be referenced from biological explorations of interaction in its natural form. Interactivity between two entities then can be a transferable idea to explain the current condition of the vendor as seen from multiple perspectives.

The state of street food vending in the urban environment echoes the state of symbiosis in which the vendor and the urban ecosystem “live together” (Leung, 2008:1). Symbiosis, as a term to describe coexistence of multiple entities, represents a larger umbrella of relationships between entities that are negative, positive, or neutral.

Such relationships include: phoresy, commensalism, exploitation (parasitism), and mutualism. Each relationship is also definitive of a level, or lack of, tropic interaction, or the “nourishment” directly or indirectly gained through interfacing.

Phoresy implies a relationship of neutral value because energy is not transferred between the two entities. When defined, phoresy is “an association between two organisms in which one (e.g., a mite) travels on the body of another, without being a parasite.” (Oxford onine dictionary, n.d) In its linguistic origins, phoresy is the derivative of Greek phorēsis for ‘being carried.” (Ibid.) “When a butterfly obtains nectar from a flower, it will become dusted with pollen and then, when it moves to the next flower, pollen is carried with it ensuring fertilization of the second flower. There is, however, no trophic interaction or transfer of energy associated with the interaction between the butterfly and the pollen.” (Bush et al., 2001)

Commensalism overlaps with phoresy but diverges since energy transfers between entities indirectly. This is a relationship in which one positively benefits from the interaction while the other remains neutral without gain or harm.” (Ibid.) A frequently cited example is the relationship between sharks and remoras. When sharks feed on large prey, they scatter pieces of flesh. Remoras feed on these scraps, thus deriving energy from the actions of the host even though the transfer of the energy is indirect.” (Ibid.) In this instance, the shark

HARM

BENEFIT

EXPLOITATION

MUTUALISM

--

++

Symbiotic Relationships Symbiosis merely is a hub for a variety of other relations that prescribe positive, negative, or neutral relationships for the actors involved.

does not aim to assist the remoras in gain, but the remora survives by the product of the shark’s survival mechanisms. The shark survives remotely, while the remoras depend on the byproducts.

While commensalism portrays a relationship of effectual gain, mutualist and parasitic interactions represent direct trophic outcomes.

Mutualism is the sharing of benefits between entities while parasitism describes a relationship where one positively benefits while the other is harmed. However, as a result of the direct interaction, both partners in the relationship are dependent upon one another.

Specifically to expand upon mutualism, one can draw upon a writing by Douglas H. Boucher, Sam James and Kathleen Keller titled “The Ecology of Mutualism.” Written in 1982, the piece unpacks the different typologies of mutualism and the implementation of such theory in a biological framework. Since mutualism describes a scenario in which entities involved all benefit, Boucher, James and Keller further the discussion about the number of partners involved in the scenario. The authors describe the mutualistic relationship to often be monophilic where two species, or partners, are independent of one another but work cooperatively. (p#) In this instance, while independent in terms of their individual characteristics, the cooperative relationship is considered one. To elaborate on this interaction and the outcomes of such partnership, the authors state:

mutualism is a joint benefit; however, the dynamism of relationships cause for a more vulnerable, precarious relationship for both involved.

In summation, indirect or direct, phoretic (0), mutualistic (+/+), parasitic (-/+), and commensalist (0/+) relationships share characteristics which deteriorates the isolation of such interactions from one another. However, commensalism is considered to be “the middle ground of a spectrum of relationships” given the balance of neutrality and gain in respect to a lack of negative outcome. (Bush et al., 2001) At its etymological root, commensalism refers to the 1400s Old French saying commensal for “one who eats at the same table.” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d) How can the vendor be equally at the table as the these other agents in the larger matrix that the vendor is situated?

Interaction with one species requires interaction with the other. These are the species for which high evolutionary risk has long been proclaimed. They have given up their “freedom” and depend, evolutionarily and ecologically, on the presence of a species whose genome evolves independently. They cannot exchange genes with it, are subject to its mutability or lack of mutability, and must endure situations imperiling its survival. Selection will occur, of course, but the mutualist is a victim of the fitness of its partner, rather than a direct participant. (Ibid.)

In other words, while this partnership provides gain in what is being nurtured and shared, the otherwise independent entities are now fully dependent on the other’s resources. If one were to change, the other would change, regardless of that outcome. In a static scenario,

45

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III. Parallels of Law Vendor Development

Politics and the regulation in New York City shape the current position of the vendor in the public space and in the eye of the prospective consumer. During the course of existence for the vendor in New York City, the debate has revolved around locating the business within city-controlled markets or allowing the sales to happen on the street. As political power and historical events have shifted, the deliberation of embedding the vendor into the streetscape, agglomerating all vendors into one location, or eliminating street vending altogether has been consequential of the larger, wavering economic and political circumstances of the time.

Rewinding to the New York Ordinances of 1691, the ordinance forbade that “hucksters” may begin to sell until two hours after the public markets opened. Not long after in 1707, all street hawking was forbidden entirely (Bluestone, 1992). As captured well in “A Pushcart Evil,” Daniel M. Bluestone follows the incessant debate over markets versus the allocation of carts on the street. Bluestone annotates the heart of the debate through the opinion of one critic to pushcarts in the 1930 and parallel arguments in stating that:

the pushcart markets are as characteristic a part of the New York pageant as the skyscrapers.”

Some observers of the urban landscape viewed pushcart markets picturesque places steeped in urban cosmopolitanism. For many reformers, however, the coexistence of pushcarts and skyscrapers evidenced a disquieting polarization of urban life between poverty and progress. (Ibid. 74-75)

Fiorello LaGuardia after having been elected in 1934 exemplified the ideal of regulating the peddlers through the establishment of indoor markets such as the Essex Street Market from the aid in part provided from the New Deal. In tandem with the implementation of indoor markets, a law was then passed to prohibit peddlers from taking the city streets, not only to formalize the peddler’s practice but to cleanse the street in preparation for the World’s Fair in 1939.

Ultimately, the leadership of LaGuardia in the 1930s

demonstrates the psychological and political dichotomies searching to legitimize the peddler with the accepted commercial Market in New York as an alternative to the peddler’s practice that often served the needs of the poor. This “polarization of urban life between poverty and progress” (Allen, 1998) and reallocation of vendors reemerges over time including the leadership of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. In 1998, Giuliani implemented a rule restricting street food vendors from 144 streets. As quoted in the New York Times article Giuliani to Bar Food Vendors on 144 Blocks to defend the rule as to shift the vendors to benefit quality of life, “’It’s a rule of reason.... That’s part of living in a civilized city, as opposed to a place that’s chaotic.’’ (Ibid.)

Such rules of reason have been developing for decades not only to regulate the demeanor of the peddler through the space in which he becomes situated, but the process to gain permission to sell and the physical cart in which he sells from. To pull from the evolution of the Ordinance for the City of New York, one can begin to understand the narrative in which laws for street vending have become further detailed to annotate become registered with the city, what agency to legitimize that relationship with the city, and the properties of the cart to characterize those parameters.

For instance, in 1845, the Ordinance did not define street peddling in its rules but in terms of cartmen. The 1845 By-Laws and Ordinances of the Mayor, Alderman, and the Commonalty of the City of New York in 1845, outlines in Title I “Of Licensing Carmen” that the Mayor maintains the power to issue and revoke the license for carts. Given these regulations, the license would only be awarded to a United States citizen of at least twenty-one years old that can provide a good cart. The license then would expire on the last Monday of July the following year, as provided in Section 5 of that Title. (ByLaws and Ordinances , 1845) Beyond the issuing of licenses, Title II describes Regulating and Numbering of Carts with dimension and materiality. Section 1 states that “each sled, cart or dray employed in the transportation of any goods, wares, merchandise of other things excepting firewood, shall be two feet five inches wide between the foremost rungs, and two feet nine inches wide between the hindmost rungs, and no more; and all the rungs shall be three feet inches high above the floor of the sled or cart, and no morel under the penalty of five dollars for every such offence.” (Ibid. 484) These By-laws and

47

Mayoral Decision-Making & Street Food Vending Over the course of history in New York City, the law has become refined to control the amount of street vending that could be allowed on the street and what that practice consisted of.

48

Ordinances define that the decisions regarding the vendors were sourced directly from the Mayor. Materials and dimensions of the cart are also controlled by the city at this point.

The 1905 Revised Ordinances of New York City specified regulations for “Peddlers, Hawkers, Venders and Hucksters in Section XIII, page 74. Licensure in 1905 still depends upon the Mayor, but the rules to earn and maintain such licensure have become more complex.

For instance, Section 523 details that the license number recorded by the city must correlate with the sign on the cart as well as the badge specifically to “be worn on the left breast of the outer garment.” (Ibid. section 523) The cart and licensee are recorded as one entity in the eyes of city legislation.

Since the legislation of 1905 has become further specified in which the vendor must conduct business, one can pair the legislation to an article written in the New York Times from June 8, 1904 titled “Pushcart and Peddler” to gauge the sentiment towards street vending during that time to give momentum to such amendments to the New York City Ordinance.

Written prior to the 1905 Ordinance, the author’s strong voice recognizes that laws established up until the publishing of this article, have not been enforced in such a manner for the vendors to take seriously. Either the laws have been completely disregarded or an emergence of counterfeit licenses entered the market in lieu of conforming to the city. [In connecting to work written about by Jessica Kisner, this may be the birth of the Secondary Market /Black Market for permits that is seen in street food vending today.

Since fees from violations were incorporated into normal business expenditures, the Mayor at the time, George McClellan, Jr., instituted rules such as the following in order to solidify punishment not only for the initial violation but for failing to acknowledge those repercussions.

“Amount of Push-Cart Peddlers, 1904” This chart speaks specifically to the quantity of vendors that were in violation of these various items.

§ 533. No peddler, hawker, vender or huckster of any kind of merchandise shall conduct or carry on, in the City of New York, any business as such peddler, hawker, vender or huckster until he or she shall have first obtained a license in compliance with the provisions of this ordinance. Any person violating the provisions of this section shall be punished upon conviction

49

by a fine of not more than twenty-five dollars, or in default of payment of such fine, by imprisonment

In addition, this amendment to the previous Ordinance elaborates on the exact positioning of the cart on the street.

§ 526. No licensed peddler, vender, hawker or huckster shall permit his or her cart, wagon or vehicle to stand on any street, avenue or highway within twenty-five feet of any corner of the curb, nor within ten feet of any other peddler, vender, hawker or huckster. (Sec. 11 of Id.)

§ 532. The violation of any of the foregoing provisions of this ordinance, or any part thereof, shall be deemed a misdemeanor, and the offender shall, upon conviction, be fined or imprisoned, or both, as provided by section 85 of the New York City Consolidation Act of 1882. (See. 17 of Id.)

In 1912, an article from the New York Times titled “Pushcart Question Reduced to Politics,” the author notes that vendors still have yet to adhere to the regulations. In the article, the Bureau of Licenses and the police are acknowledged as additional entities facilitating the Mayor’s agenda to control the vendors. Since of licenses recorded was 2300, the disproportion of vendors on the street in the numbers between 10,000 and 15,000 in Manhattan was concerning due to not only the disregard for the law but the congestion of the streets and unhealthful conditions developed as consequence (Pushcart Question Reduced to Politics, 1917). Additionally, a shift the mindset of how the street is to be used occurs. The article mentions that the vendors “were a hindrance to the free movement of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, and that there was no more justice in allowing the streets to be used for market purposes than for industrial or manufacturing purposes.”

Therefore, “The resolutions provided that on an after Aug. 1, 1912, all pushcarts should be installed in open-air markets, temporarily provided, where they would cease to impede traffic or be a menace to the public health.”(Ibid.)

Spite the disconnect between the city and the vendor and the negative connotations toward the vendor derivative of that tension, the

50

vendors proved beneficial to the city not long after pushcart vendors are allocated to public markets. As a response to World War I, the Food Council of this time utilized the carts to aid the poor in tenement districts with food. (Demand Pushcart as Aid for Poor, 1918) In this case, when the New York City government is shaken by a larger crisis, legislations become amended or temporarily dismissed to quickly disseminate aid to the public affected by such crisis. [Please refer to Jonathan Lapalme’s discussion on crisis and diffused architectures to understand this in further detail.]

While this information merely touches upon the historical narrative of street food vending and “pushcart peddlers” in New York City, one can grasp the tensions that exists in its foundations in pairing this with the historical section earlier in this book. In terms of power during the early periods of vending, the Mayor has the power. As time progresses, the rules imposed by the Mayor becomes a ballad between the vendors disregard for the law, and the Mayor in power then amending those rules in attempt to curtail those violations.

Even though the Mayor has historically controlled much of what happens to vendors, other agencies have materialized over time as well. For instance, the Division of Food Inspection and Offensive Trades was created by the Department of Health in 1884. In an Annual Report from 1916, a section within the Bureau of Food and Drugs is dedicated to the inspection of Pushcarts.

In 1916, the inspection process worked based off of the assumption that the carts were not sterile or kept clean. However, this section highlights that there was no penalty to the carts since they were necessary for the success of neighboring businesses. This section merely illustrates that street food vending is a thriving industry that is not sanitary, but there is no measure for how to prove this or be held accountable. This report is situated between the establishment of pushcart markets and the need for the pushcart during World War I, in which the value of the cart economically thrives while the cause for concern of sanitation and health rises.

As the city becomes further complex, with the insertion of the vehicle and the evolution of technologies and manufacturing, larger scale resolutions such as relocating vendors to centralized markets entered the back and forth nature of city versus vendor, or in the language of the earlier article “poverty versus progress.” Rather, this is

a narrative in which the commercial market of New York City thrives within the ordinances and alternative economy develops in parallel.

This has been the case for the entirety of street vending in New York City, including today. Rather than pitting one market against one another, how can both co-exist? (General Ordinance of the City of New York, 1905) IV. VENDOR AND THE LAW

In order to be a street food vendor, there is a tension between what the vendor needs to sell and what the city dictates that the vendor needs in order to sell. Regulations and laws aside, the vendor needs a space to sell, mobile or fixed, “something” to vend from, and the food.

On the other hand, New York City restricts where the vendor can sell, requires a permit for a city approved food cart and location to store the cart, and outlines acceptable food providers to purchase ingredients.

(Local Law 77, 1977) Spite the immense amount of money invested in buying a cart, without a permit, the cart is rendered useless. The regulations set onto street food vending suppress any ability to have ownership.

The notion of using the street cart as a tool of oppression taps into some of the fundamental discussions concerning property. The city creates the narrow framework for which the cart can exist, therefore mimicking the Roman law for property. As Proudhon explains the Roman law for property in his work “Property Considered as a Natural Right--Occupation and Civil Law as Efficient Bases of Property,” property is “the right to use and abuse one’s own within the limits of the law.” (Proudhon, 1996) Proudhon considers that in its simplest form of power over something, this is considered to be naked property.

The other type of property is possession in which Proudhon quotes Duranton to state “is a matter of fact, not right.” (Ibid.) To elaborate on this dichotomy of property, a proprietor describes an owner that can rent for use while the possessor is the tenant. Property highlights the injustices and inequalities amongst people, but paradoxically, private ownership of property is argued by Proudhon as impossible.

What does this mean for the street food vendor that invests money in a street cart to be acceptable by New York City law? The vendor may “use and abuse” his or her cart within this regulatory

framework, but if the vendor does not abide by regulation, the city may seize the cart and render the vendor powerless. This logic undermines the vendor as a proprietor in the macroeconomic and political systems, highlighting the vendor vulnerable to the power of law. Law, a system enforced by some to control the behavior of others, dominates property and claims property for its own.

In The Comedy of the Commons: Custom, Commerce, and Inherently Public Property by Carol Rose (1986), Rose states that “... exclusive private property is thought to foster the well-being of the community, giving its members a medium in which resources are used, conserved, exchanged to their greatest advantage.” (p.712) However, in the case of the vendor, even though the vendor purchases and “owns” the street cart, the city finds that by controlling the cart as property through the permitting process, this will “foster the well-being of the community.” The City recognizes that the vendor facilitates the vitality of street life in New York City in providing quick, inexpensive meals and revenue for the city but inserts systematic control over the operations of vendors in order to respect other merchants and create food practices that are healthy. (Int 0511-1999. (n.d.). For instance, the implementation of restricted streets for vending aim to avoid congestion on the streets based on time and location. Local Law 17 of 1983, Section 17 declares that the Commissioner determines the health, safety and well-being of the public of a particular street given a public hearing prior. The City establishes regulations on property, whether it be the cart or the land it occupies, as a mechanism to establish fairness amongst people, inherently creating inequality due to the nature of property itself.

Furthermore, on February 3, 1995, Mayor Rudy Giuliani signed Local Law 15 that amended Title 17 in order to no longer allow for a vendor to be issued more than one permit, temporary or full-term.

Local Law 15 was met with opposition in the lawsuit of Big Apple Vendors (Plaintiffs) v NY City (Defendant) in December 1995.

In short, the vendor’s position according to the suit:

Plaintiffs further contend that Local Law 15’s multiple permit restriction violates their due process rights in that it deprives them of a constitutionally protected property right. Plaintiffs

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argue that the standard for renewing food vending permits has always been lenient and that reliance on such a standard, permit holders have invested substantial amounts of time and money in developing their businesses and this has led to the creation of a constitutionally protected property right which the City cannot alter without cause. (Big Apple, 1995)

The City defends:

The essence of due process of law is fundamental fairness....”It demands that that the government treat all justly by granting to the individual against whom governmental decisions operate the right to be heard.”....In order to state a due process claim, a plaintiff must show that it has been deprived of a liberty or property interest which is created or recognized by State law.....

As the United State Supreme Court noted “To have property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need for it. He [or she] must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He [or she] must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.”....

Plaintiffs have not shown that a property interest has been created here. Generally a license is subject to reasonable restrictions and to revocation by an issuing authority.....The State may change the right to hold a license which it has been granted or the conditions under which it may be held because it is not a vested right.....(Ibid.)

The suit explains that the vendors are suing on the violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments. Essentially, the claim of unconstitutionally was denied due to the lack of proof that their right to due process had been compromised. The City argues that such restrictions on the vendors do not prevent the vendor from continuing to sell. The vendor, based on the law, does not have a right to license or a permit. By deduction, the vendor does not have the right to sell from his cart, nor from any particular location. If the vendor is investing in this business as they argue in this suit, at what point can the vendor

take ownership? Is natural property possible, or is the vendor only in a constant state of possession defenseless to the laws that govern the means of possession?

The problem in which the vendors are facing are not of the question of their right to property but the pressure of the laws that govern property to create fairness to community and the inherent inequality as consequence. Property establishes what is mine from what is yours. Prescription of such legislators and judges support and instill such logic. Proudhon argues that so long as legislation is trusted to be the defining principle, inequality will thrive and rights will be difficult to maintain.

For as long as legislation governs the street food vending practice, the vendor’s rights will continue to remain at stake. Moving forward, the discussion may not be to defend the vendor from this position but to find other means of ameliorating such conflicts within the confines the law provides.

V. CURRENT POSITION OF VENDOR

Currently, multiple agencies exist to place pressure and regulate the street food vendor while surges of advocacy organize to resist and change those measures. According to the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s fold-out brochure “Vendor Power,” the following agencies are involved with regulating vendors: Consumer Affairs, Health and Mental Hygiene, Sanitation, Environmental Protection, Finance, Parks and Recreation, and the Police. Since this is a generalized list that pertains to all vendor types, some agencies concerns street food vendors more than others. Also, agencies beyond the larger New York City department entities cause conflict for the vendors invisible to the processes recognizable on the street. By no means do these agencies affect the vendor in a linear fashion nor do these agencies influence every vendor the same way.

To begin with two dominant entities, The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and The Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) output duplicate information for which the vendor can conduct himself of herself in space, via restricted streets, permitting, licensing, and etc. The mirrored information between agencies exist since the DOHMH and DCA declared an

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Applies for

Restricted Permit to vend

Department of

Parks and Recreation Office of Administrative Trail and Hearings

STREET FOOD

VENDOR Applies for

Permit for the Cart

License to Vend Food

if a No ven tic do eo rr f V ece iol iv ati es on a :

one of the 4 Tribunals of: “enforced� by:

Department of

Police

Health Tribunal

through Processed by: mitigates process to make sure vendor has tax clearance Department of

Finance

Department of

Department of

Health and Mental Hygiene Sets guidelines for permit and license

Consumer Affairs 1996 Intra-City Agreement set to connect DOHMH & DCA

Situating the Street Food Vendors with the Law Street Food Vendors exist within a realm in which many city departments in New York City define how the practice may exist on the street through specific legalities.

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Mimics DOHMH regulations

contest in court through the:

intra-city in 1996 that stated that the responsibility for administrative tasks concerning license and permits be relayed to the control of the Department of Consumer Affairs. (Memorandum of Understanding, 2010) After being audited in 2003 by the New York State Comptroller to review the effectiveness of this relationship, the responsibilities were outlined to be:

DCA is responsible for processing all applications and issuing all licenses and permits, while DOHMH oversees the processes. DOHMH is responsible for establishing the policies, guidelines and operating procedures relevant to the issuance of licenses and permits, and for ensuring compliance with these policies, guidelines and procedures. All license and permit transactions are entered by DCA on the automated City Agencies Management Information System (CAMIS). (Ibid.)

Therefore, the DOHMH follows the code laid out by the Administrative Code of New York and the Rules of New York City, implements these policies to define the requirements for licensure and permit. The vendor applies for the Mobile Food Vendor Licensure as proof of ability to handle food and applies for a permit for the food cart through the DOHMH. The DCA then processes this information. When reviewing the requirements for licensure and permitting, the DCA mirrors the information output by the DOHMH.

If the vendor violates a law implemented through the DOHMH, the vendor then will receive a Notice of Violation in which he will she will be penalized and fined. To contest these violations, the food vendor has the opportunity to appear in court through the OATH Health Tribunal, one of the four tribunals under the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH). If the food vendor is not in violation of the health code, the food vendor will then be heard by the Environmental Control Board. However, if he or she does not appear in court, the vendor will be held accountable to pay the default fee.

In regards specifically to situating the cart on the street, the DOHMH also documents the streets that the vendor may not vend on, during this day, at such-and-such time. However, in the permit

application process, the application further states that a Restricted Permit to allow the vendor to sell in an otherwise restricted area are a separate permit entirely. This permit is to be obtained through the Department of Parks and Recreation, or obtain permission directly from the Commissioner of Parks and Recreation. (N.Y. ADC. Law § 17315) In another scenario, the vendor also applies for a Restricted Area Permit if wishing to vend on private property outdoors in a commercial zone. (New Mobile Food Vendors Permit Checklist, 2011) Additionally for existing in the streetscape, the vendor must be mindful to not obstruct the sidewalk as to comply with the Department of Sanitation as well.

Once the vendor has been established but needs to renew his or her license or permit, the vendor must be certain that he or she is current with their business taxes. New York City Department of Finance refers to this as a tax clearance. The Department of Finance advises the vendor:

If your permit application says “You have not been cleared

by the New York City Department of Finance,” or if

DOHMH directs you to get clearance, this means

that DOHMH was not able to determine your tax clearance

status automatically. Instead, you must obtain tax clearance

from Finance and submit a Vendor Tax Clearance Certificate to

DOHMH with your application and submit it in person to

Finance. (Business Street Vendor Permits Tax Clearance, n.d) Again, while the tax clearance refers to the Department of Finance specifically, the DOHMH mitigates this process still given the department oversight of license and permits as clearly outlined in the agreement between the DOHMH and DCA.

The New York City Police Department also is involved in terms of ticketing the vendors in the public space. The police are told to enforce rules produced by the above agenices; however, each precinct may differ. For instance, after referring to Gabrielle’s discussion of the Green Carts, the placement off such cart typology is based on police precincts. Some precincts, as shown in Jessica’s work, are more strict in the adherence to these restrictions. In the instance of an unpermitted vendor near the 82nd Street Business Improvement District and Roosevelt Avenue, the woman would get ticketed on side of Roosevelt

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SPATIAL VIOLATIONS

A

Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are in bus stop, w/in10 ft. of crosswalk/subway/driveway

B

Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are against a building or structure

C

Article 89: $1000 fine for failing to have a permit decal on the cart

D

Article 89: $1000 fine for the cart not abutting the curb

E

Article 89: $400 fine for the cart taking up more than 10 feet of linear space on the sidewalk

F

Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are on a sidewalk less than 12’ wide.

*

Chapter 6.01 24R RCNY- $200-$400 fine for non-processing cart selling processing food

*

Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are vending at restricted time or place

12

F B

C: $1000

’-0

”

E: $400 ”

’-0

10

D: $1000

Spatial Violations A 56

Included in this diagram are a few ways the cart may be fined if not following the law and the quantification of those violations.

Avenue but simply relocated to the other side of the avenue where she no longer receives tickets due to the change in precincts. While the rules put out are overarching, such rules are inconsistently enforced.

Such inconsistencies emerge from the conflicting interests in the public sphere. An example of such differing ideas for how it is used is highlighted in the New York Times article from 1981 titled “Police are Stepping Up Anti-Peddler Campaign.” In the article, the chief of police describe three opposing forces:

‘’The police are caught among three opposing things,’’ Assistant Chief Milton Schwartz of Manhattan South said. ‘’Business people who pay taxes and overhead and want to make a profit, peddlers who want to make a living and people who want to buy at a cheaper price.’’

(Johnston, 1981)

These opposing forces allude to the multitude of methods in which the vendor can be perceived and interacted with space symbiotically. Given these many departmental entities of New York City governing mobile food vending, the vendor is entangled in the multiple lines of communication around his or her ability to sell.

VI. LOCATING IN SPACE: [DIVERSITY PLAZA]

In examining a particular location, one can view the dynamics of street vending in Diversity Plaza in Queens. Diversity Plaza, often known as 37th Road Pedestrian Plaza, is located at the convergence point of the neighborhoods of Woodside, Elmhurst, and Jackson Heights, in Community District 3. Close to the major transportation hub in Queens, Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue, the site has strong access to transportation to the subway lines E, F, M & R as well as bus lines. Specifically, the Plaza is located on 37th Road between 73rd and 74th Streets.

In 2011, the Department of Transportation implemented the plaza in order to address traffic safety, sidewalk crowding, vehicle congestion, parking availability, slow bus service and a lack of public open space. (Department of Transportation, n.d) The Department of Transportation developed these improvements by adding a pedestrian plaza, rerouting the bus to 75th street, adding a bike lane, adding public furniture, and so forth. However, there were motivations for the plaza beyond those directly related to transportation.

Prior to Diversity Plaza, the homelessness, drunkenness and crime threatened local community businesses by provoking the businesses to close earlier. (Rennison, 2012) However, the proposal of the plaza had induced opposition as well. Some actors opposed to the implementation of the plaza included Agha Saleh, Shazia Kausar, Mohammed Pier, and Shiv Dass. Agha is an internet cafe owner that disagreed with the project out of fear for new crime. Shazia Kausar, owner of cafe Bombay Chat, projected that business will drop as a result of the plaza, and Shiv Dass of the Jackson Heights Merchants Association shares the same sentiment. Further, Mohammed Pier, president of the Jackson Heights Bangladeshi Business Association advocated that the customers came to the area to shop, not to sit.

(SUHKI, n.d)

In light of the scheme, husband and wife Agha Saleh and Shazia Kausar formed Social Uplift Knowledge and Hopes Initiative (SUKHI) in order to create positive improvements through the plaza.

As a reflection of the cultural integrity of the area, SUKHI was derived from “a Punjabi word meaning prosperity and happiness.... Kausar said the partnership changed what was a nightmare into “a dream of prosperity.” (Rennison, 2012) SUKHI is the non-profit organization spearheading community support for the plaza and is recognized by the Department of Transportation as such.

Council Member for Community District 3 Daniel Dromm has been proactive in securing funds and support for the project. Dromm secured $500,000 in capital funds for the project in addition to the $2 million dollar support from the Department of Transportation.

(Altimirano, 2013) According to an article written in the Queens Courier on October 23rd, 2013:

The councilmember also secured $10,000 in discretionary

funding to include the services of the Horticultural Society

and ACE New York, which will offer a monthly power washing

and horticulture care as part of daily maintenance and cleaning

services for the plaza. Dromm had already allocated $60,000

to the Doe Fund to clean both the plaza and surrounding area (Ibid.)

In addition to these services, programming has livened up the space,

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Street Food Vendors + Diversity Plaza, Queens Locating these vendors in space shows that permitted vendors exist on Roosevelt Avenue whereas unpermitted vendors sold through mobile methods in the surrounding area.

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Culture + Roosevelt Avenue Crossing Roosevelt Avenue, one would find that different cultures food from one side to the next at Diversity Plaza, around 73rd Street and Broadway.

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including town hall meetings for elections, Jackson Heights Arts Festival, and so on.

-VENDORS (series of relationship to space, type of vendors, map of vendor locations, vendor relationships to another)

The vendors are positioned in the periphery of Diversity Plaza and nearby contexts. Four different locations exist within this particular site. Firstly, two vendors are located immediately adjacent to the main entrance to the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue station, at the corner of 75th street and Roosevelt Avenue--one being a taco cart, the other a Nuts-for-Nuts cart that changes while the product sold remains the same. Next, there are the vendors adjacent to Diversity Plaza at 73rd Street and Broadway. 37th Road has a few more vendors at the perimeter of the bordering residential complexes. Then, there are the alternative vendors to the regulated carts that float along 37th Road.

The vendors around Diversity Plaza are reflective of the cultural identities that embody the space. A dichotomy exists in between Tibetan cuisine and the Halal carts.

After speaking to the cart located adjacent to the 7 overpass tracks on Roosevelt, the vendor of the cart explained that while he doesn’t own the cart and did not know of the exact reasoning for the location, the specific location for the cart did not matter. Regulars would visit the cart, especially since a large population in the vicinity could not eat the meat used in Tibetan food. This cart in particular is worked by three people, through friends and family.

On the other hand, a Halal cart across Broadway has existed for twelve years in the same location, prior to Diversity Plaza. This was the first Halal cart in Jackson Heights and boasts being a Vendy Award winner on the side of the cart. Two people worked the cart at this time, while two others worked another shift, shared business amongst friends. The cart is built in a fashion where the consumer would order with the one employee on the right, and the food would be produced and delivered on the left. This cart also has a security camera as well.

Three Halal carts exist on this corner, but the two carts, one including this one, are owned by the same person.

As a means of vending outside the parameters of New York City, defines as street vending, 37th Road could be seen with multiple

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different instances. For example, one vendor had a small, closed stand as wide as he is. The stand was an extension of the business he sat against, sourcing ingredients from the grocery across the street.

Another woman was mobile and walked up and down 37th Avenue with her Churros cart.

Many of the businesses nearby included groceries/markets, merchandise vendors, city newspaper stands, restaurants, and restaurants that had windows to vend to the street from standing within the building.

VII. THE CART [SITE BASED]

As enforced by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the permit for the cart is split between two different applications, one for non-processing and another for processing. Within these two typologies, there are five classifications, A, B, C, D or E, in which the cart will be categorized depending on the type of food the vendor wishes to sell and the processes used to prepare that product. The cart classification also determines what facilities that cart must have, such has hand-washing sinks, and so forth. As outline in Chapter 6 of the Health Code for Mobile Food Vending Establishments: Processing Carts A, B: A: grilled or fried meats, sausages, poultry, shish kebab, hamburgers, eggs and gyros.

B: sandwiches prepared on the unit, raw fruits, vegetables and salads, breads, bagels and rolls buttered or topped with cream cheese on the unit, smoothies and soft serve ice cream.

Non-Processing Carts C, D, E: C: prepackaged frozen desserts, prepackaged sandwiches, and prepackaged and presliced fruits and vegetables D: brewed coffee and tea, donuts, pastries, rolls and bagels buttered or topped with cream cheese at a commissary, popcorn, cotton candy, nuts, candied nuts, soft pretzels, and chestnuts, regardless of whether such foods are heated for aesthetic purposes.

E: only non-potentially hazardous uncut fruits and vegetables are sold or held for sale or service. (New York Health Code, 2008)

The Cart + Regulation The cart is carefully detailed set by the law for proper food handling and existence on the street. The cart changes depending on whether it is nonprocessing or processing the the various classifications that fit within those categories.

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In addition to the physical amendments to be included, the DOHMH also requires that the cart follow the material specifications for food-contact surfaces and non-food contact surfaces. Food contact surfaces cannot be porous and must be smooth; therefore, materials used are aluminum and stainless steel. Additionally, if wood were to be used on the cart, the wood too must be wrapped in metal.

Zooming out in scale to the cart as an object in public space, the cart may be no larger than five feet by ten feet, and the code requires that the cart site itself in regards to distances in which the cart needs to avoid conflict with other objects and actors on the street. (New York Health Code, 2008) Here is a list of tickets recorded through the Environmental Control Board and the Penalties that are affiliated with those violations.

17-315 C: ITEMS NOT IN OR UNDER CART EXCEPT

WASTE CONTAINER ($100)

AD 17-315 E:VEND IN BUS STOP, NEXT TO HOSPITAL 10

FT OF DRIVE, SUBWAY, CROSSWALK ($100)

A.C. 17-307 B: UNPERMITTED MOBILE FOOD UNIT

A.C. 17-307 A: UNLICENSED MOBILE FOOD VENDOR

H.C. 81.31: EQUIPMENT NOT CLEAN; IMPROPERLY

MAINTAINED ($300)

H.C. 89.13 G: ALLOWING UNLICENSED PERSON TO VEND

AC 17-315 D: VENDING UNIT AGAINST DISPLAY

WINDOW OR 20 FT. OF ENTRANCE OR EXITS ($100)

H.C. 89.05 A 2: NO PROOF MFVU SUPPLIED SERVICED AT

PERMITTED COMMISSARY FACILITY ($200)

H.C. 89.13 J: OPERATE MFVU IN AREA NOT

AUTHORIZED BY PRIVATE RESTRICTED AREA PERMIT

17-315 A: VENDOR ON SIDEWALK LESS THAN 12FT., OR

NOT AT CURB ($100)

H.C. 89.23 F: FAILURE TO PROVIDE HAND WASHING

FACILITIES ($550)

17-311: FAIL TO DISPLAY LICENSE AND OR PLATE ($100)

H.C. 81.19 B: SHATTER PROOF OR SHIELD LIGHT BULB

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NOT PROVIDED WHEN REQUIRED ($200)

H.C. 81.19 C: INADEQUATE VENTILATION ($200)

H.C. 89.23 B: VENDING FROM ANY PLACE OTHER THAN

A MOBILE FOOD VENDING UNIT ($385)

17-315 I: VENDING WITHIN PARKS JURISDICTION

WITHOUT COMM. APPROVAL($100)

H.C. 89.13 E: OPERATING W SUSPENDED, EXPIRED OR

REVOKED PERMIT OR LICENCE

H.C. 89.19 A: VENDING FOOD FROM UNAPPROVED

SOURCE ($550)

VIII. MOVING BEYOND THE CART

Looking at “ H.C. 89.23 B: Vending from any place other than a mobile food unit,” there are many alternatives employed by vendors that find other means of selling beyond the DOHMH approved food cart or expanding beyond the spatial limitations of the cart. In East Harlem, one vendor used the scaffolding, appropriating the public space for his use, to hang bananas. While today this is considered to be in violation of the New York City Health Code, this method of vending harks back to a law that allowed vendors to hang clothing from lamp posts .

Referring to Santiago Ciguerda’s work, one can imagine methods of tapping into older mechanisms such as the lamp post with objects in space that can be applied for legally, such as with permits.

How can street food vending be expanded beyond the cart in such a way that adheres to the laws of space and materiality outlined by the governmental agencies. Since the New York Charter allows the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to create and amend laws as seen fit, this may allude to a more temporal mechanism for vending, a method for vending that adapts with the changing of the laws. With this, the hope would be that the vendor maintain or gain agency in the field of work he or she is situated within.

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The New York Times. Retrieved November 3, 2013, from http://www. nytimes.com/1998/05/24/nyregion/giuliani-to-bar-food-vendors-on144-blocks.html Altimirano, A. (2013, October 23). Jackson Heights plaza to get $500K in enhancements. The Queens Courier.

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