The state of the New York City newsstand
Song Eun starts his days at the Greenwich Village newsstand, where he has worked for over a decade, a little before 6 a.m., in time to catch the neighborhood’s early risers. Nineteen hours and two jobs later, he returns to his home in New Jersey where he is lucky to enjoy three hours of sleep.
Newsstands like Song’s, once a vital component of New York’s streetscape, are disappearing. Down from their peak in the 1950s, when 1,500 stands dotted the urban landscape, there are now around 330, according to a city report. Given the general difficulties of running a small business in a commercializing city, these smallest of small businesses are struggling to survive.
“For past 15 years, money at newsstand has gone down every year,” Song said in broken English as his hand outlined a descending staircase. “This kind of job in future is not going to stay around. It is old-fashioned.”
The first major blow to newsstands came in 2005 when, with strong support from former mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city signed a contract with Cemusa, a Spanish “street furniture” company, to replace nearly every newsstand and bus shelter in the city. The deal cost Cemusa $1 billion. A decade later, Cemusa has mostly completed its project. The new steel, aluminum and frosted glass newsstands have sapped the stands of their individuality, but have proven more reliable than the crumbling, shack-like ones they replaced.
For newsstand owners, though, the aesthetic changes were minor inconveniences compared to the economic impact Cemusa’s influence wrought. As part of the heavily disputed agreement between Cemusa and the city, revenue from the advertisements plastered across the kiosks would no longer go to owners, as it had for decades. Though individual residents were still permitted to own newsstands, their revenue would come from merchandise sales alone (namely newspapers, cigarettes, candy, and lottery). Ad revunue was no longer theirs. For the month of April, the dining table-sized Burberry advertisement that flanked the backside of Song’s newsstand went for $17,000, of which Song and the newsstand’s owner will see none.
The lost advertising dollars are one jab in a cascade of economic punches that have made the newsstand business, and the lives of the people it employs, increasingly difficult to sustain.
Song immigrated to the United States from Korea in 1995, a decade before Cemusa’s arrival. He is 43-years-old, but his young, flinty eyes belie his age, shifting even when his head is steady. His body moves carefully, as if conserving energy. Only his rubber-capped fingers move fluidly, quickly exchanging cash for lotto tickets. Given the length of his work day, his attentiveness seemed remarkable, but he admitted he was not always so alert. “First six months I sleep on job always,” Song said, letting his head droop. “Now my body is used to it.”
Nor does Song eat during the day, though he has made exceptions. “Sometimes I eat Snickers, but I don’t like to eat here,” he said. “That’s my personality.” And he’s right: His humble, self-effacing personality, ever eager to please, lent him an undeniable likability and trustworthiness.
When he and a middle-aged man debated the whereabouts of a $20 bill, which Song said he was never given and the man said Song had swept under the counter, Song was distraught. His hands were shaking. After the incident, he assured the customers waiting in line that he had behaved fairly. They half-smiled as if they had witnessed nothing. Just another New York day.
Newsstands are generally run by people like Song, the employees of an owner. Across the street from Song’s perch is another such newsstand, operated by Idris Dia, a 57-year-old Senegalese man who has been stationed in the same spot for 22 years. He has a head of loose curls that he sometimes tucks into a black beanie. Because his English is better than Song’s, passersby are more willing to open up. As a result, Mr. Dia seemed to know the name of every street character, and in conversation gave the impression of knowing everything because he had seen everything. “I have friends who are homeless and friends who are writers,” he said. “I learn a lot from all these people.”
Mr. Dia and Song’s nondescript Cemusa newsstands are situated on the northeast and northwest corner of Broadway and Waverly Place, respectively. Song has been at this newsstand for seven days a week since 2004, when he relocated from a newsstand further downtown. As has become common for the industry since the rise of the Internet, business at both newsstands is down. To recoup the losses from dwindling sales, owners keep their newsstands open late. Song is his newsstand’s only employee, and he works every one of the 74 hours it is open each week. All in seven square feet of space.
Junaid “Shiraz” Mohiuddin’s schedule is different, though no less demanding. The 23-year-old moved from India nine months ago, and has been a newsstand worker for five of them — no time at all in an industry dominated by veterans. Six days a week he works at the newsstand on the corner of 8th Street and University Place, for 53 hours total. He makes $7 per hour, or $371 a week. On the seventh day he was in Delaware attending classes — he hoped to complete his master’s program in information technology before his 25th birthday. Shiraz has a youthful face offset by a white, linen kufi traditionally worn by older Muslim men. His lips gave way to white, perfectly aligned teeth that glowed against dark brown skin. In fact, his whole face radiated light.
The decline in the newsstand business began with the drop in newspaper sales in the early 2000s. “Thirteen years ago, I sell 250 copies of New York Times every day,” Song said. “People used to wait in line in the morning for the paper to come. Now I sell not much.” On a good day he now sells 20 copies, but most days, he said, are not what he’d consider “good.” Though newspapers are an increasingly small part of the bottom line, they remain important because they bring customers in. The coinciding loss of magazine sales has hurt even more. “The New Yorker is $8 and New York Times is $2.50,” he said. “Guess which I want to sell.”
More detrimental has been the dramatic increase in taxes on tobacco products. During Bloomberg’s 12-year tenure, as part of his office’s expansive push to create a healthier city, cigarette prices doubled. Sales subsequently halved.
“People who smoke a lot used to buy two or three packs a day. Now they buy only one,” Mr. Dia explained. Shiraz said he sells 50 to 60 packs per day in the summer and “half that” in the winter. In the early 2000s, Mr. Dia could sell 200 packs a day.
The final hit is coming from big businesses that are popping up across the city. “Ten years ago, there was no Duane Reade and Walgreens and Kmart here,” Mr. Dia said, gesturing toward the Kmart around the block. “They can afford to have sales that I can’t.” Shiraz’s stand near Washington Square Park is in a similarly compromised location, sandwiched between a Gristedes supermarket and a 24-hour CVS. Though Shiraz says he is not worried about the competition, a quick look inside CVS revealed that he should be: a package of four full-size Almond Joy candy bars from CVS was the same price as two individually wrapped candy bars from his newsstand.
“I don’t like to complain,” Song told me one Saturday afternoon, prepping a complaint. “It’s not my personality.” His face disappeared from the newsstand frame momentarily. He resurfaced with his right leg stretched up in plain sight, his pant leg rolled up to his knee. His calf was covered with varicose veins, the byproduct of years of motionless standing. He said they cause him a lot of pain.
The physical demands of the job do not end there. Winters are practically unbearable, according to six employees. “No one wants to stop and talk,” Shiraz said of his first winter. “I get bored…and my space heater isn’t enough to keep me warm.” While summer is better, it’s not perfect. “When it gets hot, all candy melt,” Song bemoaned.
Newsstands, it seems, cannot win.
And they will not win any time soon. Walgreens, which owns Duane Reade, and CVS are undergoing major citywide expansions, taxes on tobacco products appear here to stay, and the shift to digital could soon spell the end of print journalism. Mr. Dia did not struggle to think of his business’s most recent blow. “Let’s say TimeOut. Two weeks ago it was five dollars. Now it’s free,” he said with the resilience of a man still standing after surviving tougher punches. “It’s a small loss, but it’s still another loss.”
Shiraz, still in the optimistic early months of his newsstand career, was seemingly unfazed by the fiscal realities of his job. “I’ve met people from all over the world — Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Egyptian. And they open up to me. Some only want to talk about the weather, and that’s fine, but others want to chat.” In the same moment, a squat older man, donning a camel blazer and a graying goatee, walked by and waved. “I’ve never talked to him before,” Shiraz said, smiling his bright smile. “He’s my ‘hello’ friend.”
Mr. Dia enjoyed the sociality of the job, too. The locals called him the “Mayor of the Neighborhood,” and it was easy to see why. While talking with him late one night, I accidentally knocked a glass, peach Snapple and a roll of LifeSavers off the counter. After quickly sweeping up the shattered pieces, Mr. Dia rejected my offer to pay for the damaged merchandise and handed me the wet, now peach-flavored LifeSavers to enjoy.
Meanwhile, across the street, Song had long since left his stand. He was at job number two, cleaning an office in Midtown, where he would be until 1 a.m. Two hours later he would be in bed alongside his wife. At 5 a.m. he would begin again, as he had each morning, without fail, for 15 years. In total, he would work 109 hours that week. “The last vacation I took…,” Song paused to think, looking up and to the right as if the answer was dangling in front of him on an invisible line. “Three years ago. I took two weeks off.”
In spite of signs hinting at impending doom, newsstand owners and their employees are not giving up.
Masud Khan is a longtime newsstand worker. Last month he purchased his own Cemusa stand on the corner of 14th Street and 3rd Avenue. He is expecting it to be fully operational by mid-May. “This is easy business,” he said with bags under his eyes. “It does not make much money, but it can make enough.” A corrugated cardboard sign was draped over the empty shelves where candy and newspapers would soon go. In big red lettering it advertised the stand’s distinguishing items: electronic merchandise, specifically headphones and cellphone chargers. Sure enough, they were the only items hanging on the otherwise blank newsstand wall.
