Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 33

“This right here is Rosso. You found the right person today. She...

“This right here is Rosso. You found the right person today. She deserves this, she really does. She gets it done for us at this school. You know how every school has that one person that’s kinda famous? That’s our Rosso. I can’t even tell you what she does exactly, cause we work in different departments. But I think she’s the social worker. She does a little bit of everything for these kids. They’re innocent kids. Not rich or anything, this is the Bronx. Sometimes they do wrong but these are our babies. I call them my babies, cause I’m from here. People talk about gunshots and stuff, but this is where we live at. It’s a family thing. We gotta care for our babies. On Thanksgiving Rosso had us out here with damn turkeys. I’m not even sure where she got em’, but she shows up with turkeys and says: ‘We’re giving em’ out.’ She’ll do anything for these kids. If a kid is absent, she goes looking for them. She doesn’t care if it’s in the projects. She’ll knock on their door, pull them out of bed, and make sure they go to school. She tells them the facts, the truth. But they love her cause they know she cares. Rosso’s English is a little off. She can be hard to understand sometimes. But nobody cares. She calls me Hawkinson, and my name is Hawkins. But it’s all love. When my mom passed, Rosso came to my house. Asking me if I was OK. Asking if I’d eaten. She said: ‘Hawkinson, is there anything I can do?’ That’s our Rosso. And this isn’t just a job for her, either. She’s the last one to leave at night. She’s the first one here in the morning. I know cause I open the school. I unlock the front door and here comes Rosso. She walks in, and she does a little turn. Nice clothes, hair done. Sometimes a little bit of make-up. You just have to compliment her. You know what I call her? I call her ‘Sexy Rosso.’ The sexy angel who loves our babies. She just have that heart. Not many people have that heart, but Rosso have that heart.”

“I wanted to go to the NBA like everyone else. I played sun-up...

“I wanted to go to the NBA like everyone else. I played sun-up to sun-down. But I’m 4’11,” huskier than a muthafucka. It wasn’t happening, sir. So I opened up a sneaker store with the kid who caught Barry Bond’s 756th homerun. But then my Aunt Lucy passed and I was over at her crib, cleaning out her closet. I’m reaching up for the top shelf and mad shit fell on me, one of them is a cookbook. Two recipes popped out: ratatouille and vanilla ice cream. Now I don’t know what the fuck is ratatouille, so I says let me see what this ice cream be about. I had no machine, no nothing. I put the ingredients into a bowl and popped it in the freezer. It was trash. So I was like we gotta change this. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and got a tabletop ice cream machine, and then it was like: ‘Oh, I see what this is.’ People started coming over to my crib. They’re saying: ‘Mikey, this ice cream is damn good.’ Then somebody told my mom that I was an ice cream man now, and I wasn’t gonna sell weed no more. She got so excited I was like: ‘Shit, now I gotta open up a shop.’ I’m gonna be honest, I thought it was put the scoop in a cup. But it’s a whole bunch of other shit too. I got no line of credit, no nothing. I just use whatever cash is coming into the register. Every time I run out the bill collectors come and throw stones at me. If Ben and Jerry’s grew up in the hood, that’s what we’re dealing with here. But we’ve been open for eight years. Black Enterprise Magazine called this place a ‘safe haven.’ You know how every gangsta’s got a grandma saying: ‘Sit down baby, have some food.’ That’s what this about. It’s bigger than ice cream. I grew up two blocks from here, so on Thanksgiving I’m blasting out hot food in the projects: turkeys, sandwiches, mashed potatoes. We put on for the community. That’s what we do. Cause if you ain’t doing it for the community, that means you’re taking. We like family here. My employees are like my kids. That’s why I stay blessed. I’m gonna put one of my shops in every neighborhood. Imagine how many kids I’m gonna take off the streets. I’ll take em’ from pants saggin’ to ‘Welcome to Mikey Likes It.’”

“I had an empire once. They called me the Hot Dog King. I owned...

“I had an empire once. They called me the Hot Dog King. I owned the largest vending company in the history of New York City, with 499 permits. But when the city tried to ban disabled Vietnam veterans from vending in midtown, I fought em’ hard. I got them to reverse the decision. But it upset some powerful people. Mayor Giuliani convinced a handful of idiots on the city council to change the regulations. They took all my permits away, except for one. They carved me out. They beat me so bad. Then my wife had a stroke, and I completely shut down for two years. I couldn’t fight the fights anymore. We lost our home. We were living in a van for awhile. I went from riches to below rags. But I couldn’t just roll over and die. I had to do something to feed my family. So one morning I dusted myself off, borrowed a pushcart from a friend, and headed to one the busiest places in the city, the front steps of The Metropolitan Museum. Now this was some valuable real estate. A permit for that spot would normally run about $650,000 a year. But I wasn’t going to pay a thing. I’m a disabled veteran. I sacrificed for this country, and I’ve got a right to make a living like everyone else. The cops kept giving me warnings. They said I couldn’t set up by the museum. But every time they bothered me, I would move closer, and closer. Until I reached the dead center of the museum. The single greatest spot to sell hot dogs in all of New York City. And I’ve been here for the past fourteen years. I’ve managed to stabilize the household. We make enough in the summer to survive the winter. I’m supporting three generations of Rossi’s with this cart, and I’m not budging. They took me to court and I beat em’ so bad. They’ve taken me to jail. They’ve tried to tow me. For five years I slept in the cart every single night. When they tried passing a law that you can’t sleep in your cart, I started sleeping in my van. I’m guarding this spot with my life. They’re not going to beat me. Not again. I may not be the Hot Dog King anymore, but I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me. I’m coming back. One hot dog at a time.”

(2/2) “There’s about 40,000 pieces in my collection now. You...

(2/2) “There’s about 40,000 pieces in my collection now. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that I’ve found in the garbage. I’ve got paintings. I’ve got books. Gold rings, gold watches, gold bracelets. I’ve got stained glass windows that are 125 years old. I’ve even got an 8 mm film projector with a silent movie in the reel. The movie still plays and everything. This stuff is real treasure. But after awhile my collection got so big that I started to worry I’d get in trouble. I did my best to keep everything organized: all the paintings in one place, all the toys in one place. But 40,000 goodies is a lot of goodies! So when the commissioner came to see my collection a few years ago, I was nervous. But she was so impressed. She let out a big ‘wow!’ And the sanitation department decided to let me use this space. It’s where we used to keep our trucks, but the floor started cracking. So now it’s where I keep my treasure. A lot of people are telling me that it’s like a museum. And that I’m like a curator. To be honest I’d never even heard the word ‘curator.’ But it really got me thinking: why shouldn’t it be a museum? The Fire Department has a museum. The Police Department has a museum. Why can’t the Sanitation Department have a museum? Some place where people can see all the great stuff that they’re throwing away. Maybe then they’ll stop and think about it. And maybe they’ll stop and think about the people who pick it up. People don’t like to think about garbage collectors. Cause they don’t like to think about the garbage. Sometimes they want to pretend it doesn’t exist. And that’s their choice. But it’s a choice they have because we spend 24 hours a day cleaning it up. But we don’t mind. This job feeds our families. It’s a good job with good benefits. But it always feels nice to have a little recognition. There’s no parade for the sanitation department. We’re the ones who clean up after the parade, so that the next day you can’t even tell there was a parade. And that’s also something to celebrate. So I’d love for us to have our own museum. A museum of trash. But not real trash. It would be a museum filled with treasure, that some people thought was trash.” #comebacknyc

(½) “It’s in my blood. We never had much money growing...

(½) “It’s in my blood. We never had much money growing up. So on the week before Christmas I’d scour the trash bins on our block. I’d find all sorts of treasure: old dolls, old trucks, old games. I’d collect them in a bag like I was Santa Clause. And my siblings would wait at the top of the stairs until I came home. So being a garbage collector was the perfect job for me. It made sense. I’ve always loved hunting through the trash. It’s in my blood. When I’m riding on the back of the truck, I’m like a predator. I’m scanning the horizon. I’m using all five of my senses. And nothing gets past me. The moment I see a trash bag lying on the curb, I can tell if there’s goodies in there, just by looking at it. Whenever I see something promising, I’ll signal to my partner. And he’ll know to leave that bag for me. The next thing I do is give the bag a shake, and really listen to it. A lot of times you can tell what’s in there just by the sound of it. You might hear metal hitting metal, or glass hitting glass. I can tell the difference between wine bottles and wine glasses. Different ‘pings.’ If you don’t hear nothing at all, that means it’s regular garbage. Though you do have to be careful. Because clothes don’t make noise. And you can find a lot of perfectly good clothes in the garbage. Over the past 25 years I’ve found all sorts of treasure. I bring all my goodies back to the garage at the end of every shift. I can’t sell it or anything, because anything in the garbage belongs to the city. But this is perfectly good stuff. I couldn’t just leave it in the trash. So I’ve been collecting it. Nobody minded at first. My foreman was cool. My super was cool. And I was just keeping it in a little pile, out of the way. So nobody said nothing. But over the years my collection kept growing. It grew to hundreds of pieces. Then thousands of pieces. And I started to have a little bit of a problem.”

“My late husband had a quote he’d say at the end of all his...

“My late husband had a quote he’d say at the end of all his podcast episodes: ‘Dream those dreams. Then live those dreams.’ He never seemed to mention that he could only live those dreams because his wife was at home with the kids. I never intended to have so many children. I was a womanist before I knew what the word meant. I was president of the student council. I skipped three grades in math. I went to Barnard. But my boyfriend and I became pregnant when we were young. We made the choice to get married, and after that it became this whole different chapter: cooking, cleaning, homework, dance, soccer. We raised four wonderful children together. And I enjoyed so much of it. But sometimes it could seem like everything I did was connected to another person. My husband tried in his own way. He understood the importance of presence. And he did learn to cook three good dishes. But at the end of the day, his projects always took precedence. Because he was ‘dreaming those dreams.’ His schedule was the ‘inflexible’ one. There might be discussions, or arguments, but all he had to do was say ‘business’ and that was the end of it. I did have my tricks for claiming my time. I never just exercised, I took classes. My Zumba class was at 7 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was on paper. So he had no choice, he had to be home. I also did a lot of private tutoring. Sometimes I’d do it with a baby strapped to my chest, but at least I was putting those math skills to work. But I always wanted something more. I wanted a physical space to call my own. So when my children got a little older, and this storefront became available near my house, I teamed up with some friends and we took the leap. The bakery opened on my birthday. And it gave me the best present of all, a place I had to be. Something inflexible. Like a permanent Zumba class. And there was nothing to discuss, because at the end of the day, it was business. I remember the day we opened, there was a moment when my husband tried to walk back into the kitchen. But I stopped him. Because only employees were allowed in the back. This was not his space. And it wasn’t our space. It was my space.”  #comebacknyc

(2/2) “My first painting was a picture of my wife Harriett....

(2/2) “My first painting was a picture of my wife Harriett. There’s this photo where she’s holding a sunflower, and I love it. So I decided to make it a painting. Every day during my lunchbreak, I came to this back room and worked on it for one hour. She loved it. But one week after I finish, we find out she has breast cancer. We cried all night. I told her: ‘Just focus on getting better, Babe. I’ll take care of everything.’ And she says: ‘Just promise me you won’t stop painting.’ So I keep going. One hour every day, during my lunchbreak. The next painting I made is of me and her. I modeled it after The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. But it’s like a metaphor; I’m protecting her from cancer. When I finish with that one, she starts getting better. And I’m pretty good at this painting thing. Only problem is nobody wants to buy a picture of my wife. So I tried painting Biggie. And then I painted Tupac. It wasn’t nothing too serious. Just something I was doing on my lunchbreak. But one day New York Nico sticks his head in the door. He’s a customer. I didn’t know him too good, but he says: ‘What’s this?’ And he asks if he can do a little movie on my paintings. He puts it up on Venmo, or Vimeo, or whatever. And it goes crazy. We hold a screening at the barbershop. We put out a few of my paintings. And there’s a line of people around the block! Channel 11 made it their lead story: ‘Big Mike has an art show!’ My friends are all saying: ‘Mike, we didn’t know you painted!’ And I’m saying: ‘I didn’t either!’ The New York Times ends up writing a long article called: ‘The Michelangelo of the Barbershop.’ And things keep getting bigger. I get my own solo show at a gallery. Not everyone is thrilled about it. Some people were like: ‘This ain’t even art.’ But I didn’t listen to em. I just keep painting. One hour a day, on my lunchbreak. It’s not like I can afford to quit work or anything. But my daughter has got me on the Instagram, and I’m getting a lot of commissions. Even Robert DeNiro has one of my paintings. But you know the best part about the whole shandooble? My entire life, I’d been saying: ‘I can do that.’ I always knew it. But I finally did it. So now other people know it too.” Michael Saviello

(½) “My father used to send me to Italy every summer. I...

(½) “My father used to send me to Italy every summer. I was just a kid. But I’d go to the museums and look at all those famous paintings, and think: ‘I could do this stuff.’ Even the Sistine Chapel. I’d never even heard of Michelangelo, but I looked up at that ceiling, and thought: ‘I could do that too.’ But it was just this feeling I had. I never pursued it. I played a little football. Went to business school at Rutgers. Then right after graduation, my godfather offers me a job at his barbershop. This was some old man shop with fifteen chairs. So I’m thinking: ‘This is gonna be easy. I’ll do it for a few weeks and get a real job.’ But we pulled up to the curb on my very first day, there were like thirty people lined up outside the door. This was 1982. The seventies were over. And short hair was coming back hard: flat top, Humphrey Bogart, old football player kind of stuff. Suddenly Astor Place Barbershop was the hottest shop in town. My job was to man the front desk. Every kind of person was walking through the door. It was like the United Nations of haircutters. And I’m just a kid from Jersey, so I couldn’t get enough. Everyone was coming here: the movie stars, the rappers, the musicians, the artists. Sometimes they would show me their latest work, and every time I’m thinking: ‘I could do that too.’ Keith Haring was a customer. Back when he was nobody. He showed me one of those little stick figure paintings, and I thought: ‘Now that I can definitely do. And two years later he’s huge. It’s like what the fuck? Could have been me. But  I didn’t have time for that shit. By then I’ve got a house. I’ve got kids. So thirty years pass by, just working at the barbershop. Then five years ago a customer came in. This guy is a stockbroker, but he’s showing me this book he wrote. And I said to myself. ‘That’s it. If this guy wrote a book, I’m going to start painting.’ And I swear on my mother. That very night. I walk outside the door and find a giant canvas leaning against the wall, with a unicorn painted on it. And a sign that said: ‘Free.’ I thought for sure it was a sign. I carried it to the backroom, rolled the whole thing white, and said: ‘Tomorrow I start.’”

“I was getting a reading from this Vedic astrologer in a small...

“I was getting a reading from this Vedic astrologer in a small Indian village. He was studying my chart, which looked like hieroglyphics to me. Just a bunch of lines and suns and stars. But like any good astrologer, he had a certain level of psychic insight. ‘What is this?’ he asked. ‘What happened to you at the age of 22?’ I knew exactly what he meant. So I told him. It all started in college when I got this knee injury that wouldn’t go away. I tried doctor after doctor, but nothing was working. My friend’s dad recommended I try this Chi-gong master named Gabriel Chin. So I looked him up in the yellow pages and gave him a call. The entire conversation lasted maybe 45 seconds. He picked up the phone and said: ‘Who told you?’ Then he told me to come over to his house. It was a normal house, nice house. Somewhere in the suburbs. And Mr. Chin was gardening in the front yard when I arrived. He didn’t look like much at all. He was tiny and old. But he did have an epic beard. He invited me into the house and told me to sit down on the couch. Right away I started asking stupid questions, like: ‘Can you move things with your energy?’ But he gave me evasive answers like I was The Karate Kid. ‘If I tell you one lie,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to tell you three more.’ That was all I got. Then he sat across from me in a swivel chair, lifted his arms, and began to cultivate The Chi. Now I feel like it’s important to say that I’ve never done drugs in my life. Because things got psychedelic. I felt like my head was being pushed back. I’m seeing swirling greens and purples. And suddenly I hear this loud ticking sound: tick, tick, tick. Like a watch. It’s all around me. It’s getting stronger and stronger. And then I was out. I went into this deep coma-like sleep. And when I regained consciousness, two things had changed. My knee didn’t hurt anymore. And I’d been given the power to heal without touch. I still hear that ticking sound. It’s especially loud every time I cultivate the Chi. I thought for the longest time that only I could hear it. But it’s coming from inside of me. It’s coming out of my right ear. You wanna hear it?”  #comebacknyc

“I work with Gus for 35 years. He should be a millionaire by...

“I work with Gus for 35 years. He should be a millionaire by now, he’s been in business for 50 years. But we don’t have nothing. Because he’s a very bad businessman. That’s why he needs my help. God put me in his way to help him. He’s 75 years old, but If you say ‘retire’, Gus go crazy. He doesn’t even like to close the restaurant. We spend all our time here. It’s like our home. Gus is the father and I am everything else. People think we’re married. He needs me for everything. Always he’s yelling: ‘Marina! Marina! Marina!’ But I don’t mind. We all have a mission in life. The rivers make a noise, the flowers leave a smell, I help Gus. And I’ve learned a lot from him too. God put Gus in my way to make me a better person. He’s a Christian but he won’t tell you about it. He just do it. All of the homeless come looking for him because they know he will make them a very nice plate, with love. Just like he is making it for a bank president. And he treats me well too. I’m a little bit ‘Spanish emotional’ so we fight all the time. If he says ‘up,’ I say ‘down.’ But I know he would give me anything I asked. But I don’t ask for nothing, because Gus doesn’t have nothing. That’s why he needs my help.” #comebacknyc