On 6/24/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
NY Times, June 24, 2006
ABOUT NEW YORK
Squeegee Men, Still Around, Still Relentless
By DAN BARRY
---
The above article is TimesSelect, so I can't forward it.
[your wish is my command. ;-) ]
June 24, 2006
About New York
Squeegee Men, Still Around, Still Relentless
By DAN BARRY
THE intersection of West 41st Street and Dyer Avenue ranks among the
least attractive corners of Manhattan, all bus exhaust and Lincoln
Tunnel traffic. The surrounding concrete-and-fencing motif creates a
sense of temporary incarceration, with only a sluggish green light to
grant parole.
Lingering there Thursday were those simply trying to make a buck. The
forklift operator unloading watermelon with balletic turns at the back
of Stiles Farmers Market. The construction worker dabbing his trowel
like a paintbrush on a canvas of wet cement. And the two men wielding
a different kind of utensil with similar aesthetic intent: a squeegee.
"There's an art to it," one of the men, Rodney, confided as a green
light liberated potential customers. "The faster you are wiping the
soap and water off the window, the gooder you are. The fastest can get
two or three a light."
He and his partner, Timothy, referred to themselves as window washers,
which might offend those who risk their lives for the viewing pleasure
of penthouse dwellers. They both claimed to have been practicing their
craft since 1980, which, if true, would entitle them to some kind of
squeegee pension, if not a city proclamation for audacious endurance.
Squeegee men? How, how, so last century. It was as if they were
unaware of their own extinction: a dodo's fate that began more than a
decade ago with the eradication efforts of an annoyed Mayor David N.
Dinkins and then a zealous Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who somehow made
them the symbol of a city slouching toward ruin.
Few recall them fondly (squeegee men, that is, not necessarily former
mayors). At red lights they violated the space of your Ford or Toyota,
slapped gray water on the windshield, interpreted frantic pantomimes
of "No, no" to mean "More, more," wiped away most of the gray and then
waited for the pressed buttons of undefined guilt to eject a dollar
through a side window's slit.
They were the city's unofficial greeters, standing at its portals with
squeegees for flags and buckets of dirty water for confetti — until,
suddenly, they vanished, dispersed by persistent policing of what the
city's administrative code calls "certain forms of aggressive
solicitation." One or two practitioners resurfaced a few years ago,
just long enough to stir some silliness that their presence signaled a
crime spike, a lax City Hall, Armageddon.
Amazement, then, rather than nostalgia, prompted a noontime pause to
watch Rodney and Timothy in the execution of their rounds. Their retro
street theater included acts of traffic-dodging contortion, clownish
spills of water and facial expressions that ranged from puppy dog to
attack dog.
"We don't rob, we don't steal, we don't sell narcotics," said Timothy,
a sleepy-eyed reed of a man wearing a Yankees jersey. "We wash
windows."
The light turned red and he hustled out to splash soapy-soupy water
onto the windshield of a cherry-red sport utility vehicle. His efforts
prompted a series of crazed hand gestures within the car that perhaps
he interpreted as applause.
Moments later there came fluttering from a side window a small flag of
surrender the color of green.
Then Rodney, as brawny as Timothy is thin, took his turn with a gray
Honda, only to come away with a sulk suggesting that the driver had
failed humankind. "If they say no, don't do it," he advised. "You know
what? There's more than one car."
Soon a white S.U.V. with New Jersey plates found itself being blessed
with New York water by Pastor Rodney. "A buck for good luck," he said,
smiling, as the driver pulled away, not.
Rodney and Timothy both reeked of something potent, perhaps an
especially bad batch of Old Spice. Now Timothy, swaying slightly, was
standing in the middle of Dyer Avenue, directing the traffic that
raced desperately to avoid a red light and thus his squeegee.
A blue Grand Cherokee lost the race, and Timothy tried to soothe it
with strokes of his slobbering squeegee. The driver, though, wanted no
part of Timothy's cheap comfort and told him so with gesture and word.
"Come on, man," Timothy shouted, his sleepy eyes awakening with anger.
Soon, though, he was washing another car's window, oblivious to the
green light and the sounding of horns. That was when Rodney ran over
to help finish the job. "That's called teamwork," said Rodney.
For each window sullied and unsullied, these squeegee throwbacks
received one dollar: way too much and yet not enough, it is a toll
collected at the intersection.
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Jim Devine / "In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over
communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy." --
Fran Lebowitz
