A Night On The Streets

[Photo by Jeff Riedel via NY Mag]

Just breezed over NY Mag's article on our city's homeless "A Night on the Streets With the City's Homeless" and for a brief moment got an inside look into Damian's "Bat Cave" up on 134th and Broadway, William's spot in the dirt lot by the Hudson in the Bronx, Lorenzo's tight space under the ramp that leads to the paring lot to Yankee Stadium, Connie's UWS stoop, Nancy's space under a 4 lane overpass in the Bronx, and Lorraine on 31st St. They don't want to play by the rules: "Paperwork, rules, questions. I prefer getting stuff on my own." (Damian), their prices are quite a bit lower than the Emperor's Club:

"I call myself a self-employed street vendor. My license is my HIV-negative paper. You know what I’m saying?” She charges $20 for blow jobs, $30 for sex, $40 for “half-and-half,” which means both. On a good night, she makes between $100 and $150. She spends most of what she earns on crack—$5 for nickel bags, $10 for dime bags"

And they're a major problem for our city's legislature. They're also one group who could care less about the struggling market, or their 401k's. With over 35,000 homeless people living in our city, it could very well be the "single biggest failure of the Bloomberg administration".