Charles Joseph (smoking a cigar) and Kevin Cleary sit together on the sidewalk of Columbus Ave. near 67th Street in the Upper West Side of Manhattan midday on Monday, November 27, 2023. Joseph has sold books, magazines and records on this patch of pavement since 1996. Cleary is a good friend and often stops by to say hello. Hemingway is Joseph’s favorite author and Balzac is Cleary’s. “Anyone could write like Hemingway,” scoffed Cleary.Joseph is originally from Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn but settled down in Trenton, New Jersey, to raise his family and start a law practice in the 80s. There was a bookstore near his practice he loved. It was two stories high and “there were millions of California fruit crates filled with old books, magazines, everything,” he said.In 1887, Joseph saw the store was going out of business and struck a deal with the owner. He paid $28,000 for 500,000 volumes – 20 truckloads – and moved them into storage with the idea of having his children sell them online. “I would have been richer than Bezos with that plan,” he said.Unfortunately, Joseph’s law practice, specializing in civil rights and environmental work, went under. “I had more auditors in my office than clients,” he said with a laugh. After that, Joseph moved to Manhattan and brought his collection. He began selling outside The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue in 1996. But the police soon shut him down. So, he tested the waters on the West Side. “I thought the community would embrace me. Some people have. But there is also an element of the community that hates book stands, and vendors, and anything on their sidewalk,” Joseph said.In 2011, fifteen years into selling on the sidewalk, all of his books were seized by the police. Joseph fought back in court. “I knew the captains at the 20th precinct were trying to pull one on me, they couldn’t do that. I know my rights. I’m a lawyer,” he said.New trouble is on the horizon for Joseph as employees of the sanitation department have been coming by and taking pictures of his makeshift bookstand. Joseph is angry because there’s a fruit stand across the street and “no one ever bothers him,” he said.Cleary is a fellow former lawyer and he believes that Joseph’s stand is getting backlash because “it’s a new age, people don’t appreciate books anymore,” he said. “The Upper West Side used to have a million bookstores. They had Barnes and Noble, Borders, Coliseum, a huge bookstore, huge bookstores. They’re gone. They’re like dinosaurs. They’re gone. And all that’s left is Charles [Joseph] with his books on the humble stand and now they harass the hell out of Charles [Joseph],” said Cleary.Cleary explained the sanitation department wants to rid the books from the sidewalk citing concerns that they’re attracting rats, but Cleary says this is ridiculous. “Rats eat pizza, not pages!”Patrick, who would not give his last name because of his status in the country, poses with a saw outside a new Christmas tree stand in the Upper West Side of Manhattan on the corner of 79th and Columbus Avenue, in the early afternoon on Monday, November 27, 2023.Patrick is from Quebec, Canada, and has his own microbrewery, but he put his work on hold “to live out his dream” by becoming a street-side tree salesman in New York City. “It’s been on my bucket list since I was a boy,” he said.Patrick works for a distributor in New York based out of Albany who delivers the trees during the night. The stand opened on Friday, November 24, 2023, and is running until Christmas. “I have a big month ahead of me!” he said with a smile.Patrick loves the Upper West Side. “The people will walk down the street, all frowny, and grumpy, like people you see on TV from New York, and then they see me and the trees, and they smile,” he said.Laura Nest is also from Quebec and works down the street from Patrick on Columbus Avenue near 68th Street. She poses with a medium-sized tree in the late morning of Monday, November 27, 2023.Laura is a seasoned Christmas-tree saleswoman. Because of her veteran status she often knows what the customer wants before they do, she said. “I know how to pick ‘em.”Laura grew up hiking and camping in the forest under “tall, towering trees,” she said. Selling trees in New York is her way of bringing nature to the city, she said.Laura’s favorite part about the job is delivering trees to apartments in the Upper West Side. “I love seeing the looks on the kids faces,” she said. “Dogs get excited too!”A man at his Halal cart in the Upper West Side on Thanksgiving prepares food for parade attendees of the Macy’s Day Parade on Thursday, November 23, 2023.A Halal cart owner flips sizzling meat in his portable cart on Thursday, November 23, 2023.
Ashley Elizabeth Miller 
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