Midtown Street Vendors Demand City Remove Cart-Blocking Planters

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Street vendors that have set up on Broadway between West 31st and 32nd street for decades to ply fresh fruit, coffee and meals are facing displacement and fines after the local business improvement district bolted planters into the sidewalk.

The Street Vendor Project rallied on the Midtown Manhattan block Monday to demand the city's Department of Transportation remove planters installed by the 34th Street Partnership within the next week.

If the planters are not gone by the deadline, the advocacy group is threatening to dig them out by hand, co-director Mohamed Attia said. Street vendors on the block said the planters were bolted into the sidewalk this year, but the 34th Street Partnership said the block has been part of its horticulture program since the late 90s.

"We have a big question — who has the right to use public space?" Attia said during Monday's rally. "Is it made only for the rich people and the big businesses, is it made only for the real estate owners or is it made for everybody? Is it made for all New Yorkers, especially those immigrants the hardworking people who are here in the streets every day."

Three of the 34th Street Partnership's planters currently occupy the space where Yahay Rahimi operated his coffee and pastry cart for 12 years. Since moving to the other side of West 31st Street, the vendor has lost 50% of his business, he said Monday. Customers that used to be regulars at Rahimi's cart have found new options for coffee rather than walk an extra block out of their way, the vendor said.

Wahede Whab, who runs a produce cart on the corner of Broadway and West 31st Street, would rather risk fines than move to a new spot. Whab's father started up the business on the same street corner nearly 40 years ago.

"They don't like us man, I don't know, they want to move us," Whab said. "The plants would come and I was able to move them, one week later I come and this sh** is nailed to the ground. "

Whab was able to fit his cart between two planters, but then a parking sign was moved to further obstruct the cart's space. The vendor said all the work was done before 7 a.m. because the partnership knows that's when he sets up for the morning. Whab's current set up does not follow street vendor regulations because he is too far away from the curb, he said.

Street vendors that don't comply with city regulations can be ticketed and fined. In 2012, the City Council voted to reduce the maximum fine from $1,000 to $500 per ticket.

"I cannot move, this is where we have been for 35 years. It's not normal for me to move. I used to be a small boy coming to this area — my dad was always here, this was our spot forever," Whab said.

Attorney Matthew Shapiro of the Urban Justice Center said Monday that the vendors have a legal right to remove the planters installed by the 34th Street Partnership. Shapiro said that the business improvement district did not apply with the city Department of Transportation for the permits needed to install structures such as planters on city streets.

The lawyer cited two prior cases where vendors were allowed to physically remove bike racks and planters that blocked carts on the Upper West Side and in the Financial District. Displaced vendors are considering filing a lawsuit against the 34th Street Partnership, Shapiro said Monday.

But the nature of a city agreement with the 34th Street Partnership may complicate the vendors' plans. The city Department of Transportation and the business improvement district have a "maintenance agreement" that allows the partnership free rein to install structures on streets within its area — which spans 31 total blocks near landmarks such as Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, Herald Square and the Empire State Building — a department spokeswoman said in a statement.

"DOT has had a maintenance agreement with the 34th Street Partnership going back many years which allows for the planters, bike racks, information kiosks, and benches," DOT Spokeswoman Alana Morales said in a statement. "We will review the concerns of the street vendor community and work closely with our partner on this issue."

The 34th Street Partnership released a statement accusing the Street Vendor Project of using the vendors on the block to "conflate and confuse the myriad of issues surrounding street vending regulations."

Dan Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership, disputed vendors' claims that planters on the stretch of Broadway were installed to displace street vendors, saying the group has a "persecution complex." He added that vendors on the block are only bringing attention to the planters because construction at 1250 Broadway has made the heavily-trafficked street extremely narrow.

"The building construction shed goes way out, there's only 3 feet left between them and the vendors," Biederman said. "Now the vendors are getting very jumpy about the planters. We didn’t put those planters out there just to move them."

The 34th Street Partnership spends about $1 million per year on its horticulture program, which was started in the 90s to bring color to gray Midtown streets. Biederman said that the partnership does not consult street vendors when deciding which blocks will receive plantings.

"A lot of owners in our district say they really don’t like the vendors. Many vendors put fumes into buildings and look terrible," Biederman said.