Tag: nyc

The mob controls food carts

Today’s mobile food vending business is one of day laborers and shift workers who, despite hustling all week long, may not earn minimum wage.

Even for bosses like Sharif, financial autonomy is not guaranteed. Though Sharif owns the actual food cart—“I built it 3 years ago” —a portion of his earnings is sent to “a guy in New Jersey.” That guy is in all likelihood “Mr. Q.” While Sharif owns the food cart and his own vendor’s license, it’s Mr. Q who controls the mobile food vending permit—a tiny piece of adhesive plastic that makes this cart more than just a griddle on wheels. Without it, Sharif has no business. Sharif and Steve are just 2 of the 1000s of unwitting lawbreakers in a black market for cart permits that operates in plain sight of the city’s enforcement agencies. That black market is worth an estimated $15M to $20M a year, costing the city millions of $ in potential fees while making it harder for immigrant entrepreneurs to build equity and take the first step up the economic ladder.

how the food cart system in nyc works. still unexplained: why are the carts in midtown so terrible, giving tourists a completely wrong impression about what new yorkers eat?

Vegan Scam

“I worked hard, this was my passion. This was all I ever wanted. Why would I throw it up in flames? I have nothing now. I have no apartment. I have no money. Why would I torture myself like that? Talk to my friends. They will tell you this is not me.” Her carefully cultivated public persona hid some deeper demons. “She’s thrown stools, grapefruits and phones at me. She would leave cryptic notes with big kitchen knives stuck into vegetables. She punched me in the head and cut me with her ring.”

Baby sideshow performers

Couney created and ran incubator-baby exhibits on the island from 1903 to the early 1940s, and though he died in relative obscurity, he was one of the great champions of this lifesaving technology and is credited with saving the lives of 1000s of the country’s premature babies.

this is a great example why the fight against luddites is always one of the most important

experiments in urban living

All of this seemed very far away on a Sunday night this winter, in the basement of a renovated 4-story brownstone in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The building, Kennedy’s new home, is run by the co-living startup Common, which offers what it calls “flexible, community-driven housing.” Co-living has also been billed as “dorms for grown-ups,” a description that Common resists. But the company has set out to restore a certain subset of young, urban professionals to the paradise they lost when they left college campuses—a furnished place to live, unlimited coffee and toilet paper, a sense of belonging.

Barano

Start with hand-pulled mozzarella in several varieties, including salted, smoked, and stracciatella. The cheese is served with accoutrements — grilled scallions, eggplant, Lucky’s tomatoes and more — and makes an excellent addition to other starters like meatballs with sheep’s milk ricotta and octopus with farro, celery, pickled radish, pine nuts and mint pesto. House made pastas range from bucatini with rabbit ragu (shown above) to tagliatelle “arrabbiata” with lobster, tomato and stracciatella. Wood-fired pizzas include sauces red to white, but don’t miss the wood-fired mains — especially the spit-roasted lamb leg with carrots, watercress, pine nut and raisin panzanella. End your meal with ice cream from OddFellows Ice Cream Co.