The New York Daily News has a shocking new report out on the financial health of the nation: the squeegee men are back in NYC as an ‘in-your-windshield reminder of the 9%-plus unemployment and the highest rate of poverty in 27 years.’
The paper spotted a team of 5 men hustling cars near Times Square and jumped on the chance to snag an exclusive interview. ‘The city isn’t doing anything to help these men get jobs,’ said Sheila, the wife of one of the squeegee men. ‘The city chases them away and harasses them instead of helping them get work. We got no other place to go but here, making money out in the streets.’
The squeegee men were long a fixture of life in Manhattan. In the 70’s and 80’s they stalked common traffic chokeholds, such as the ramps for the George Washington Bridge or the approaches to Yankee Stadium on game days.
All that changed when Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor in 1994. The new mayor saw the squeegee men as a scourge of the city, and instructed the police department to aggressively crack down on them. Under Commissioner Ray Kelly’s Quality of Life Unit, the effort was wildly successful, and sightings have been few and far between in recent years.
In the early 1990’s as the city suffered through 13% unemployment, the squeegee men were held up as ‘a symbol of New York’s moral decay.’ Today, however, the men seem to be an example of the nation’s economic, rather than moral, crisis.
‘We are out here making a living,’ James, a squeegee man and father of 3 told the Daily News as he accepted $1 to $2 for his work. ‘It’s hard to get a job.’
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