Midtown Lunch

I spotted this yesterday when I was walking back from lunch: One of those fruit/smoothie vendors blocking everything but the window of the Our Heros truck at Wall & Water streets. I’ve seen them both parked there before, but never this close to one another. I guess it’s nice that they learned to co exist…

If you don’t have lunch plans on Thursday and happen to be near City Hall, there’s a rally planned by the Street Vendor Project (yes, the people behind everyone’s favorite gluttonous event, the Vendy Awards) from noon to 3 p.m. in support of two bills. Those bills would lower fines, such as the $1,000 one that vendors have to pay for minor infractions. According to the SVP, they’re trying to get 1,000 vendors plus supporters for the rally. You can find out more info about the event here. Graphic courtesy of the SVP.

We’ve been hearing about the constant headaches of food trucks trying to find parking in midtown, with entire areas deemed off-limits after repeated kicking out by the police who have been ramping up enforcement of metered spots after a court ruling. One consequence was that the trucks started spending more time in Soho and the lower part of the Financial District meaning blocks that maybe had a couple of trucks a few days a week are now saturated every day.

First, a popular stretch of Hudson St. was the scene of trucks being asked to leave due to complaints from nearby businesses, but that simmered down. The latest trouble spot is a one-block stretch of Hanover Square that not only houses two or three trucks on any given day, but a couple of popular carts like No. 1 Banh Mi as well. On Monday and Tuesday, trucks were being told they couldn’t park there anymore due to complaints from more than one source.

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Late last week there was a Twitter post from the Sweetery people that was a little alarming. It concerned the stretch of Hudson St. in SoHo between King and Charlton that you can see above, and was a sign that the increasing number of food trucks parking on these blocks in the past year hasn’t gone unnoticed.

I got in touch with Grant from Sweetery to see what this was all about. The truck has been parking there for about a year and a half and along with Rickshaw Dumplings is one of the trucks most often parked on Hudson. See what he had to say, after the jump. Read more »

The handful of vendors on Liberty St. at Broadway that were ticketed last week and asked to leave by the management of 140 Broadway are still selling food. About 250 petition letters from concerned lunch’ers were collected in three days last week, according to the Street Vendor Project which has been helping the affected carts that include A-Pou’s Taste, Biryani House and 99% Vegetarian Food. The letters are being sent to building management this week, and the vendors hadn’t been bothered by the police again as of late Monday.

As you may have heard yesterday, there’s been an effort by the building management at 140 Broadway to get the carts parked on Liberty St. to move. They include a smoothie cart that’s been there forever, and new additions like the 99% Vegetarian Food cart, A-Pou’s Taste and Biryani House. The Street Vendor Project was out yesterday along with some of the cart operators trying to get support by petition or having people write or call the building management to voice their opinions. When I stopped by the table they had set up there was already a stack of the signed petitions sitting there and a bunch of people filling them out. SVP intern Dana said that an infuriated office worker from the 140 Broadway building came down and got a petition to photocopy and circulate around.

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