ike yellow cabs and the World Trade Center, the blue paper coffee cup with the Greco-Roman design is a symbol of New York City. It is the emblem of a thriving mobile-food industry that allows the thousands of New Yorkers served each day to keep up with the frantic pace of life in the Big Apple. From Monday to Friday, all year long and rain or shine, the food carts congregate at the busiest intersections of downtown Manhattan, each one serving hundreds of people. New Yorkers from all walks of life line up to take advantage of some of the best deals in town.

In New York, where most people rush from point A to point B on foot or by public transportation, the carts provide an invaluable service: quick, accessible food that can be eaten while walking, or racing, to the next destination.

And yet, most customers take the street vendors for granted. They don’t think about what it takes to get the coffee in the cup and the wiener in the bun. Sure, it takes dedicated men and women who are willing to start the workday in the middle of the night. But most importantly, it takes water. Lots of water.
Most food-vending carts, however, do not have a direct source of water; it has to be imported from somewhere else. This is a big deal for the coffee and hot-dog vendors because if they can’t get the water, then they won’t make money.

Aman Ullah, who has operated a coffee cart on the corner of Centre and Hogan streets for the past 10 years, knows that he must always have a supply of water available. So he has four to six five-gallon jugs of distilled water delivered to him early each morning by the Poland Spring company.
"I use a bit to clean the floor," he says, but otherwise the rest is sold as coffee – he only serves Nescafe – tea or hot chocolate. There is almost always a line of customers in front of Ullah’s cart, and the rush doesn’t end until he closes shop at noon. Ullah says that he sells 500 cups of coffee every day, and his is only one of eight carts on a two-block stretch.

Uptown, at 60th Street and Broadway, Kalit Ahmed is the only coffee vendor outside the Trump Tower, at the entrance to the Columbus Circle subway station. He is an employee of David Hayim, the owner of the cart and the holder of the vending license. Hayim also owns Rich and Famous Pizza, and he has workers from the restaurant deliver hot water to Ahmed in the coffee cart every hour. The water comes in two metal urns, and he gets about 50 cups of coffee out of each one before they are empty.

Amman Ullah serving customers. Photo: Julia Apostle

At the end of the day, Ahmed drains the remaining coffee into another canister, which he empties down a sink. He’s not supposed to dump it on the street, he says, because it’s illegal. "But to be honest, when it rains I throw it on the street."

The many hot-dog vendors that stand on street corners throughout Manhattan also rely on water to make a living, but not in the same quantity as the coffee-cart operators. George Markopoulis, who sells franks from the corner of John and Williams streets in New York’s financial district, fills the hot-dog steamer on his cart with two gallons of fresh tap water every morning. On a typical day, which lasts from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., Markopoulis sells 100 hot dogs. He cooks them five at time, for five minutes each, although a few stay floating in the boiling water for longer, in between customers.

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