According to a 2006 report by the ‘Street Vendor Project’ of the Urban Justice Center, there are over 12,000 street vendors in New York City. In Lower Manhattan alone, 46 percent sell food and 83 percent are immigrants. Bangladeshi make up the majority of vendors with 18 percent, Afghanistan is third, with 12 percent, and 44 percent of fruit and vegetable sellers are from Bangladesh. Those surveyed reported a median net income of approximately $7,500 a year, placing them in the bottom nine percent of wage earners in the United States.
For the average New Yorker, dinner, more often than not, involves a take-out order and the question of what to eat for dinner often translates to where to purchase it. Eating out is a way of life in a city with tiny kitchens, and it can quickly become expensive. There are, however, bargains to be had. A cup of coffee at a Manhattan coffee shop costs about $1. But at a pushcart, a cup of coffee sets you back a mere 60 cents, a savings of 40 percent. Yet these bargain prices can come at a human cost.
"Nine years I am here in this same place. I sell hotdogs, pretzels, sausages, water and soda," Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi vendor on 35th Street and Broadway told Desi Talk. He gave up his behind-the-counter job at Dunkin' Donuts for this one, though it means long hours.
"I didn't know anything about this job when I came to this country first – 11 years back – but I spoke to lot of friends and they said this is good and they taught me everything [about the business]." He recalled how he did not know what a pretzel was upon his arrival here.
Bhuiyan, 42, deftly serves his clients as he talks. "I have many regular customers. They work in the building nearby. There is a security [guard] at a building here who, a lot of times, buys hotdogs for lunch. I don't have to ask him what he wants because I know his order,” he said, handing over a to-go order wrapped in aluminum foil.
“The lady who just bought a sausage works at FedEx," said Bhuiyan, adding that he uses the firm's service to send documents to his wife who lives in Bangladesh, with their six-and-a-half-year-old son.
Bhuiyan’s keeps up his cheerful patter for both his regulars, and one-time nibblers who pause at his cart for a quick bite; "Yes sir, what you like on your hotdog? Ketchup? Mustard? Onion? Doing shopping, huh?" and "What kind of soda you want ma'am? Very hot today, yeah?”
Bhuiyan’s pay check can be $70 on a good day, when the weather is balmy. Some days he returns home with about $40, from which he pays a $150 monthly parking fee for the pushcart. "I don't own this cart (or business). At the end of the day, I give my boss all the money I get from sales that day, and my boss pays me from that. For each $100 he makes, he pays me $30."
Bhuiyan begins work at about 7 a.m. and his last sale of the day is at about 8 p.m. on mild weather days. When winter sets in, he stops work for about three months.
"When it is very cold, I don't come here. And that is the time I go to Bangladesh to visit my wife, son and family," Bhuiyan beamed.
This year, however, his routine could change. He is getting ready to bring his wife and child to New York. "I have taken an apartment now and I'm getting it ready for my family," he said excitedly. For more than a decade, Bhuiyan has lived with his Bangladeshi friends in a two bedroom apartment in the Bronx. He hopes that his son will get a good education in America.
"But first,” he added, “I want my wife to go to college here." He doubts whether his wife would like to join his pushcart business, nor is he keen on roping her into the business.
"I want her to do whatever she wants to do. I would like her to go to college here first and then decide what job she wants to do," he said. Bhuiyan himself has an undergraduate degree in commerce from Bangladesh, and believes that an American education would open better career doors for his wife.
For now, he is content with his pushcart business and is eagerly looking forward to starting a new life with his wife and son in the United States.
