Chinatown Street Vendors Kicked Out From Under Manhattan Bridge

The scene under the bridge, pre-crackdown. (Flickr user AllWaysNY)

Intrepid street food explorers may be familiar with the gallery of vendors that set up shop alongside the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown, hawking everything from hot dogs on a stick to durian fruit. But now, cops are cracking down on the merchants, accusing them of some fairly gross-sounding misdeeds.

The vendors are allegedly leaving piles of foul-smelling trash out overnight, selling rotten produce, and even peeing into bags and throwing the bags out on the street. Recently, police have implemented a temporary no-parking ban to keep trucks from parking on Forsyth Street, which is destroying sales for many of the vendors: "There's no business, no people. There used to be big lines but not now," said merchant Andy Lin. Some vendors have been arrested for selling without a license.

We spoke to Street Vendor Project's director Sean Basinski to get his take on the crackdown. "The Forsyth Market is an amazing fruit and vegetable market that draws people from all over the tristate area because of its prices, the variety and quality of its produce," he says. He says that vendors purchase produce from wholesale markets in the Bronx that's about to go bad and sell it that day, and then hire a private carting company to pick up their garbage at the end of the day ("I have receipts to prove it," he adds). "The [cops] have it out for this market," he says, and claims that he's seen police troll the block every 20-30 minutes to distribute tickets for "ridiculous" infractions like "blocking the bridge from view" against graffiti artists.

The market has long been a favorite for cheap eaters. Just last week, the Street Vendor Project recounted a Chinatown walking tour that included stops on Forsyth for "tender chicken and beef, fish balls, fish tofu or deliciously fatty lamb" kebabs; food blogger Craig Nelson calls out the Fu Zhou Good Taste cart as a favorite as well. "If its such a foul market, then why do thousands of people shop there every day?" asks Basinksi. "Because it's a wonderful place."

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By Jamie Feldmar in Food on July 18, 2011 10:55 AM

Comments [rss]

CurmudgeonNYC

Why does everything associated with Chinatown in NYC have to be so disgusting?

AndySydor

We had enormous whole-sale markets all over lower Manhattan where you could truly economical, quality food WHOLESALE, much of it locally produced. But the bourgeoisie wanted to live down there again, and their delicate noses couldn't take the offense, so we drove out all of those markets, to the Bronx and beyond, and now we wait for intermittent "farmer's markets" where they sell faux organic at grossly inflated prices, and the stuff is not nearly as good as what you could get before. The model the current administration is pushing of a city for ONE class of people to use as a bedroom is not sustainable. All those of you who can't take the smell should get out of the City.

As Dr. Johnson observed, to a woman who told him she smelled, "No, Madam. YOU smell. I STINK."

ed_Extinct

This is of no surprise. Chinatown, keeping with the tradition of back home, is filthy.

soothsayer

these rotten food vendors used to setup shop at confucius plaza back in 2002, and probably before then. here's the 2002 ny times article about the nuisance http://www.nychinatown.org/art... and here's a photo of mine from back then. http://www.nychinatown.org/pho... the guy in the white khakis tried to harass me from taking photos by claiming they were on a "private" street, lol.

confucius plaza management eventually was able to kick them out and all these scum floated over to the manhattan bridge for the past 6-7 years.

pendejito

"scum"?
What makes them scum, if you dont mind me asking. People trying to hawk vegetables and fruits just to get by doesn't seem like scum to me.

randomtransplant

It certainly does smell like rotting veggies and fish even in January from up above, and most open-air markets in the city don't.

Not that the NYPD has a good track record of separating the rotten apples from the good though.

A real no-win situation.

Spirit of 76

A lot of Chinatown streets always smell like that, including Mott, Canal, Bayard, Baxter and Centre.

angry_pickle

The smell on Mott is weak. But where Canal meets Walker ... unbelievable.

randomtransplant

Not as bad as that one particular market, no. I wouldn't eat down there if they did.

Obviously just my opinion.

whitecastlerock

cockroaches...

marco_esquandolas

I think that if you want to eat food that was sold under a bridge, then well by all means you should be allowed to do so. And then if you get food poisoning, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

It looks like nobody in the neighborhood was actually complaining about the vendors; it seems like the NYPD was finding new and creative ways to fill up the ol' ticket quota.

Gwinny

That's because Chinatown is a VERY insular neighborhood... with a percentage never bothering to learn to speak English because they handle everything within their own community.

Basically, this means they are underrepresented in city government (as mentioned in other Gothamist articles recently) and are also unlikely to use these resources to be able to lodge a complaint...and in any case, perhaps a lot of the customers didn't have any issue with the vendors anyway (despite what anyone else would perceive as substandard conditions for handling food).

eflash

that first stretch of the bridge is always the worst smelling part of my commute home. i will not be missing these vendors.

wonderchimp5

What would Mickey Rooney do?

hashedz

I didn't know fish had balls--you learn something new every day on Gothamist!

NlGGAZ

Somebody either watched good morning vietnam and decided to use that cheesy joke or didn't watch it and came to that cheesy joke on their own.