Sidewalk

It’s the holiday season of 1996. Ishmael has a few complaints against the New York City Police Department, who confiscated his belongings earlier in the morning. Ishmael believes that the department wrongly targeted him due to their grievances with scavengers Joe Garbage and Al. The two men placed their merchandise on the ground in violation of local laws, thus prompting the police to clear out all vendors’ goods from Sixth Avenue. This is upsetting for Ishmael as an unhoused man, since he keeps personal possessions in the bags underneath his table, causing him to lose the clothes he had purchased for a date that night. Other men have a similar bag in which they store belongings. As Warren stresses, “That bag is my life […] it had my clothes, my ID, my toiletries, just things that I need to survive on the street” (254).

Duneier includes this incident to demonstrate how a “new model of policing” under then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani impacts unhoused men on the streets of New York (255). The enforcement stems from the belief that areas with minor forms of non-violent disorder—such as panhandling and scavenging—are at greater risk of producing felony crimes. This policing around broken windows spurs police to “clean up” neighborhoods of street dwellers in a so-called “quality-of-life” campaign, leading them to micromanage vendors for the sake of maintaining order (255).

This situation necessitates a working relationship between the police and the vendors, in which the police request compliance from vendors and vendors request that police not abuse their authority. To illustrate how this system works, Duneier accompanies Ishmael to the police station to try and secure the return of his possessions. At the station, Ishmael chats with a desk sergeant that he’s met before. Ishmael cannot recall the name of the policeman who seized his possessions, but recounts for the officer what he recalls of the incident. During their conversation, the desk sergeant tells Ishmael, “I’ve always treated you with the utmost respect and, to tell you the truth, I don’t know why anybody would have a hard time with you, because you’ve always treated me with respect” (257). Nonetheless, the officer doesn’t know who took Ishmael’s belongings and states that there is little they can do at this point to recover them.

When Ishmael and Duneier return to Sixth Avenue, Ron and Marvin chastise Ishmael, who they believe may have brought down this punishment upon himself for being away from his table at the time of the theft. But Ishmael refuses to admit that he left his table, even when his logic is challenged by Ron and Marvin. In his denial, Ishmael reveals his understanding that belongings left alone can and will be seized. Even though this action is not technically legal under municipal ordinances, the vendors recognize it as a legitimate act. Hakim confirms that police officers prey upon vendors’ ignorance: “If you don’t know the law, they abuse you” (270). After this conversation, Ishmael spots a twenty-something Asian woman named Tina standing nearby, whom he possessively refers to as his “wife,” even though they have just begun a romantic relationship (265).

Duneier reads through the local ordinances and confirms that an officer does not have the right to order a merchant to move from a legal vending space. So he conducts a social experiment by setting up a table in the same spot that Ishmael has just left. The purpose of this test is to determine whether a black police officer would treat a white, upper-middle-class male differently from a poor, unhoused black vendor. When the officer returns and orders Duneier to break down his table, Duneier refuses. When the officer commands Duneier again, he asks whether he is in the legally allotted space. The officer repeats his order a third time, to which Duneier responds “Under what law?” (272). The officer seizes the copy of the law from Duneier, who requests its return. The officer points to Ishmael, whom he says complied with his order unlike Duneier. The officer tries to undercut Duneier by telling him that “vending on Sixth Avenue is a privilege bestowed on you guys by this community over here” (273). The officer, known as Officer X, returns the copy of the law to Duneier when his white police partner, Captain Y, tells Duneier that “we decide where you’re allowed to vend and where you’re not. So don’t cop an attitude with the officer”(274).Unlike Ishmael, Duneier does not defer to the authorities, but stands firm in his position.

Despite Duneier’s opposition, the officers ultimately allow him to stay, though it is unclear whether this is due to race, socioeconomic status, or his knowledge of the laws. To try to find a comparison, he cites a letter that Hakim wrote describing how he was treated after the passage of Local Law 45. In compliance with the law’s minimum-space requirements, he located his table twenty feet from the entrance to Balducci’s Supermarket and ten feet from the street intersection. Balducci’s security guard orders him to depart and returns with a police sergeant and two patrol sergeants. Hakim asserts his legal right to occupy the space. Realizing that Hakim is aware of the law, the officers cannot illegally force him to leave and exit the scene. Hakim perceives this event through a racialized lens, describing how members of the public harmfully stereotype his intelligence on the basis of his African-American identity: “Because I am generally regarded as a Nigger, many white folks, even well meaning white folks, think I am stupid. Stupid means: The inability to achieve the tactical intelligence of a white person” (278).

Lastly, Officer X returns to the sidewalk to chat with Ishmael, who records the encounter, unbeknownst to the officer. The officer expresses his frustration with the vendors, whom he says continue to disobey orders by setting up their tables even after their goods have been seized by law enforcement. However, he believes he and Ishmael have an amicable relationship, asking the vendor: “You was upset, but you respect me and I respect you. I never give you any beef out here, do I?” (280).Due to that mutual respect, Officer X says he prefers interacting with Ishmael as opposed to Duneier, and refers to the author derogatively based on his whiteness: “Fuck him. I don’t know Joey White Bread from Adam” (281). The officer concludes the conversation by handing Ishmael $5 to buy a beer—the officer’s way of apologizing because Ishmael demonstrates respect, or what Duneier calls “the lens through which much is seen on Sixth Avenue” (285).The author surmises that Officer X feels humiliated when he is not respected by the vendors, while Ishmael simultaneously feels mistreated by the police but may also be embarrassed for him. Thus, Ishmael defers to the officer’s authority by asking politely if he is able to set up on the sidewalk.