New York Froze Street Vending in 1979. It Took 47 Years to Move.

Walk any commercial stretch in New York and you will pass them within a block. The fruit cart at the subway mouth. The halal griddle steaming on the corner. The folding table stacked with socks and phone cases. The woman selling sliced mango in a bag with chili and lime. Roughly 23,000 people earn a living this way across the five boroughs, according to the Immigration Research Initiative's 2024 study, the first rigorous count the city has ever had. They are the smallest businesses in New York. For nearly half a century, the city treated most of them as a problem to be ticketed.