The Peripatetic.

Jamal is from Bangladesh.  His daughter is nine years old. Her name is Sabrina, and he laughs when you tell him that nine is a good age, because the teenage years always have a bit of struggle for independence; right now she will listen to her father.  He agrees with a smile then walks out from behind the counter in the outdoor shop to shuffle the papers around: first the Wall Street Journal pile, then the Spanish pile and finally the Chinese.

Delivery men from the Chinese restaurant facing the newsstand rush past. A few huddle near the phone booths around the corner.  Students stream by.  Jamal is reticent.

He consents to a few photos, but he says that I must come back the next day and speak to his boss.  She is from India.  She does not allow him to give interviews.  He says to come back at 7 a.m..

Eight blocks south of the 116th + Broadway newsstand, Uriel Espiritu keeps up the Creative Health food store for Chuck.  Chuck is a middle aged Korean immigrant who keeps track of his customers, asks about their health and tries to apply what he’s been studying of traditional medecin to the problems his customers relate.  “Tired? Exams?  Try this …”

Uriel writes out where he is from “Tlapa, Guerrero” in the Mexican countryside. He followed his brother to New York City six years ago.  He’s been at Chuck’s shop for the last four years.  He worked at the old West Side Market before they closed down for renovations. His brother used to run deliveries for the West Side Market and Chuck, and he told Uriel to try the health food store for a job.

Uriel and his brother left behind two parents, two sisters and two brothers. His mother is not happy her sons are in New York, but they make double what they could back home.  “One dollar makes a difference there,” Uriel says.  They live “close,” he says, on 156th St. in Washington Heights.  Besides the cold, he says New York is a “nice city” then poses for a long time while an amateur photographer tries to focus a manual camera.

Uriel is happy at the prospect of having photos of him at work.  “I have internet!” he says.  A stream of customers file into the tiny shop, and his coworker busily prepares carrot-celery juices while he handles the register in front of a backdrop of homeopathic remedies he has painstakingly learned the names of during his four years here.

A customer tells Uriel he’ll be famous with these shots. Uriel smiles.

More photos here . . .