Sidewalk

For the last decade a dozen people have worked as street vendors on the Avenue of the Americas in Greenwich Village. All but one are black men. Hakim sells "Black Books" & mentors young men who come to his table. Marvin, who sells recycled magazines, gave up drinking & drugging & is now encouraging Ron to turn his life around. Ishmael is homeless; the police throw his property in the back of a garbage truck when he leaves the block to relieve himself. Joe Garbage "lays shit out" to earn his few dollars a day. To write Sidewalk, the author spent five years with these men as a "participant-observer." In that time, street people have become pawns in "quality of life" campaigns nation-wide. Mayors attack them. Businesses want them off the streets. Even liberal whites are uneasy in their presence. But in this affecting group portrait, the author shows that these men live complex moral lives, working hard to earn some money, stay within the law, & survive. He addresses the most pressing question in city life today: Are street people a detriment to the quality of life, or are they essential to the diversity & independence that city dwellers have always prized? The author is one of our most gifted writers on urban life, & Sidewalk gives us a clear, sharp picture of city life today-as it is, & as it might be.