I wasn’t there for the ICE raid in Lower Manhattan on Oct. 21, when overzealous federal agents descended upon Canal St., in an operation, according to the Department of Homeland Security, that was “focused on criminal activity related to selling counterfeit goods.” Talk about a waste of time, busywork for Trump’s creepy anti-immigration zealot Stephen Smith. It was a theatrical performance to, I guess, show who’s boss in New York City. I haven’t witnessed any of these flush-out-the-bad-guys conducted by masked federal agents decked out in tactical gear. In The New York Times, Kaden Cummings, 23, was quoted: “These men, they are just grabbing people, putting them in cuffs. Nobody’s identifying themselves. There’s no due process going on. It’s just straight to the back of a van if you’re African on Canal.” It’s heartening that a 23-year-old could use the words “due process,” in a complete sentence, and she probably knew what it meant. Maybe a law student.
During my 17 years of residence in Lower Manhattan, walking to work at the Puck Building in Soho, I often took Canal to Lafayette and the street vendors were omnipresent, and some had success selling knock-offs of designer goods, bootleg VHS/DVD tapes, incense and fruit. (On occasion, I peeked at the goods and once nearly bought a Jack-in-the-box for one of the kids, but passed and got one at small retailer on W. Broadway.) No one batted an eye. When I was younger, taking the LIRR to Manhattan from Long Island, a different generation of sidewalk salesman (not African) and three-card-monte hustlers were a staple on the streets, and I often enjoyed the patter of the more creative guys, thinking, well, that’s not something you see in Garden City or Mount Kisco.
One afternoon in the late-1980s, my friend Michael Gentile and I were walking down Lafayette, headed to the Excellent Dumpling House (now on W. 23rd St.), when out of nowhere a bottle whizzed by, thrown from a car and missing my head by inches. That wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t a vendor, just a bunch of stoned kids riding in a station wagon, pretending they owned the world.
Many disagreed, but I loved the first week in July each summer when fireworks of every variety were blasting in the middle of the day, and with a “password” obtained by a Chinese friend (like buying bootleg records in the early-1970s), you could purchase some explosives for your own party. That stopped when Rudy Giuliani became mayor in 1993, and the city lost some of its spritz (although I didn’t mind when Rudy expelled the squeegee kids who blocked traffic on Houston St. and often got belligerent if you didn’t hand over a buck). Over a six-month stretch, Michael and I made a project of eating at every restaurant in Chinatown that we could, hoping to hit them all. That was impossible, but it was exhilarating to walk around the curvy streets at night, a world-within-a-world in that part of town, and with the red and green neon lights, it was Christmas all year-round. On occasion it was dicey: once after departing a Thai bar on Baxter St., we heard shots, and in the next day’s New York Post there was a small story about two corpses left on the floor.
I spoke to Michael (who lives in Tribeca) last week and he said it was more difficult to walk unimpeded now, forcing him to take side streets to his destination, with the ICE Men creating more havoc than the usual cops that periodically sweep Canal St. and in Chinatown. Baltimore has any number of problems (government corruption, which affects almost everything, at the top of the list), but illegal vendors aren’t one of them. Too bad: this deserted city could use more diversions on the streets, instead of a morose landscape that’s barely saved by the magnificent 18th- and 19th-century architecture, including more churches than the number of bad Jimi Hendrix “bootlegs” still sold.
On Wednesday, the Times ran a follow-up, which shed little Light For All on what happened the day before. Two reporters wrote: “People across New York City appeared on edge after the raid, seemingly bracing for the activation of President Trump’s threat to deploy military personnel and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to New York City, which he often casts as lawless and dangerous.” The paper didn’t quote anybody encountered above 14th St., so who knows if “people across New York appeared on edge” or if that was just casual hyperbole.
My wife and I often dined in Chinatown (and once went to a friend’s wedding there, which was a little strange since all the white guests were seated together and offered bland choices, rather than dried fish maw or quail eggs) and almost every Christmas afternoon got together with eight buddies for a long feast at Canton, our favorite spot, which shut its doors several years ago.
The picture above wasn’t taken in New York, but Hong Kong, which (along with Singapore) has the best Chinese cuisine I’ve ever had. Not to mention the vendors—legal or illegal—who sold birds, jewelry, religious icons, strange paintings of Queen Elizabeth, straight-from-Mars toys, bamboo by the truckload and fresh dumplings. It was around New Year’s, and we’d already been to Berlin, Vienna and Bangkok, a tiring but exhilarating trip.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: J.K. Rowling comes up with idea for Harry Potter on a train ride from Manchester to London; Alice Munro’s Friend of My Youth, Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation and Kurt Vonnegut’s Hocus Pocus are published; A.S. Byatt wins the Booker Prize; Charles Simic wins the Poetry Pulitzer Prize; Salsabil wins the Irish Derby Stakes; Steffi Graf takes the Australian Open; Jennifer Lawrence is born and Ava Gardner dies; Squeeze is the first band to appear on MTV’s Unplugged; and Jessica Tandy becomes the oldest woman to a win a Best Actress Oscar.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023
