News Brief

Passing them casually, one would never suspect that behind their drab little pushcarts, East Side vendors of slightly imperfect scissors at four cents a pair, shirts that shrink and fade with their first washing, Ill-mated shoes and the like, live and have lived in a world of romance.

Monarch of all they survey, kings among their cheap stockings and not so appetizing herrings, these vendors of the Ghetto have their own conception of a man’s worth.

They reckon one’s value by his sales ability, by his past exploits within and without the realm of barter and sale, and by his ambitions for the future.

Tabe Reb Zalman, for instance. For thirty years or more he has been cashing ol’clo’es in New York. Worth a fortune, he still manages to eke out “a little something for an old man” from sympathetic housewives. His age and bedraggled appearance are assets to his sales talk–his business acumen has gained for him the title of “king.”

LIFE STORY CHEAP

He will submit to an interview on his life story for fifty dollars, but of course if you aren’t prepared to pay that much thirty will do. “As a concession to you, my good friend, I bare everything for twenty- How about ten?” he bargains. At twenty-five cents he loses money, but it goes at a great sacrifice, because the reporter is his friend.

Bob Kramer is different. He wouldn’t set a quotation on his experience, won’t even dicker about the worth of an interview. “I mind my business,” he tells the reporter as he fondles a stack of ancient framed pictures. “Why don’t you mind yours?”

The Irish cop on the corner, far from tradition, has no fiat feet, and he speaks Hebrew and Yiddish with equal fluency. He soldiered from Tsingtao to Capetown, and if you come upon him in his right mood, he’ll tell you all about his experiences.

Jews predominate this street market, where secondhand pants are bought and sent to black men in Africa, where battered derbies are bought and sent to coolies in China, and where shoes, broken and decrepit are sent to far off lands where they lend their wearers an aspect of respectability and affluence.

The exchange, an adjunct to the market proper, is a gloomy place. Tier upon tier of lockers are crowded with nondescript articles of barter. Food on dirty plates. An unending pinochle game. Someone in tattered clothes, with odd bits of apparel stacked high in his arms, steps from a cab and deposits his wares in a locker.

Here is another Irishman, who bargains, bickers, and argues with his Jewish contemporaries. He can tell you about Allenby in Palestine, Albert in Belgium, O’Duffy in Ireland. “Lor,” he said, “I fought with ’em and agin’ ’em. I’ve often stood as near to ’em as I am to you.”

A fat, egregious fellow volunteered to show reporters around the exchange. His observations on market conditions were interspersed with a bit of advice. “Never trust a peddler,” he warned. “Peddlers don’t trust each other.”