Local Flavor

The tender chicken cutlets crackle on the grill in honey-colored cream sauce. “Very good. Try it!” The chef exclaims to a woman standing by, and hands her a fork skewered with a dripping piece of chicken. The woman ventures a taste, nods, then orders a fajita. The chef wraps the chicken in thick flour, sprinkles it with spices, and hands his creation over with a pleased smile.

“The secret is when you mix the chicken with the sauce,” the chef tells me. “You mix it with the chicken, that’s why the chicken is so good. I make rice too, you want to taste it? Some salad with it?”

Alfred Abdelsayed is a street vendor on the northwest corner of West 16^th Street and Ninth Avenue in Manhattan’s bustling Meatpacking District. At first glance, Abdelsayed is the typical faceless Middle Eastern immigrant struggling to make a living in New York, but look again. Being an underprivileged foreigner, his existence on that corner is ignored and even disdained when he is simply a father far away from home, striving for more than what life gave him.

Abdelsayed sits in a metal folding chair next to his battered cart, wearing a slightly soiled, oversize sweatshirt and pants. The black stubble on his chin is fading to gray, betraying his 53 years. On occasion he gets up and shuffles over to the grill, picks up a spatula and starts pounding its sharp end into the sizzling chicken.

“I like the job. Any job that I start, I like the work. You have to love it—I’m cooking!” he says with a laugh.

Abdelsayed was an accountant at American Express in his origin city of Cairo, Egypt. As we talk about Egypt, he becomes visibly excited, wondering if I’ve ever been. I tell him no, but I want to see the pyramids, sail down the Nile one day.

“I’ve been to [the pyramids]. That’s my country—I have to visit them! My country is 4,000 years old. Have you heard of King Tut?” he says.

In 1994, Abdelsayed came to America with his young son, Pady, and they settled in Jersey City. In their new home, he worked as a cab driver and watched his son become an American. Pride wells up in his voice when he speaks about Pady.

“He’s bigger than you. He’s 26. He finished college this year. He came here when he was a baby. He went to school here, and I’m supporting him. I wish I had a daughter like you,” he says.

A few months ago, Abdelsayed’s license as a cab driver was suspended, so he became a street vendor to make ends meet. Weekends he works the cart on West 16^th Street, then Chambers Street during the week.

“I’m new, very new [to street vending]. Like 6 or 7 months. I live in Jersey City—it’s not far. I take the train. The guy who owns this [cart], he works the nights and I take over for him so he can go home. I work from to 8 to 7, depending. On a slow day, like today, I make $60,” he explains.

Then a pause.

“It’s hard to be in America, especially New York,” he says.

Throughout our interview, Abdelsayed offers me all the free food I can eat, as well as his son’s phone number. At one point he asks me to turn off the tape recorder, saying, “We are just talking now, as two people.”

I ask him what he hopes for the future, and he expresses his desire to return to his country, but says his son will stay here, as he is a genuine American.

Taking my leave, Abdelsayed insists that I come visit him again next weekend. I walk away smiling, surprised that I have never seen this cart in an area I’ve been frequenting for years, until now.

There is one person listening to Alfred Abdelsayed. His name is Sean Basinski, founder and director of the Street Vendor Project, a branch of Urban Justice. The organization fights for street vendors’ issues like attaining permits, opening streets for vending, reducing fines, and educating the police about the difficulties vendors face.

Basinski’s story is a surprising one. Fresh out of the Ivy League, Basinski cashed in on Wall Street during the booming nineties, then traveled the world. When he returned to New York, he decided “on a lark” to try operating a street-side burrito cart. It was a decision that turned out to define his life. Witnessing first hand the injustices of the struggling business owner, Basinski took action after attending law school at Georgetown. He established the Street Vendor Project in 2001, and today is the voice of the 10,000 people who sell merchandise on the streets of NYC.