not for $ale

Marvin parts with his do-rag.

Photograph: Imogen Brown

CLOTHES CALL
New Yorkers are willing to part with their threads—if they don’t have an emotional attachment. When I bargained with Justine, 21, for her leather gloves, she shot me an oh-no-you-didn’t look: “I feel like Michael Jackson in these!” Joy, 20, was also reluctant to sell her SpongeBob SquarePants jacket. “My ex-boyfriend gave it to me,” she explained. Both athletes and hipsters refused my offer of $100 for their shiny tights, and one dude in Chelsea even got hostile: “Fuck you!” he snorted, and sped off on his bike. Finally, though, I made a sale: “Can I have your do-rag for $5?” I asked Marvin on the UWS. “Girl, you can have it for free,” he said, untying his urban turban. Within minutes, I looked like a Puerto Rican Alicia Keys.

CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING
Whose supporters are more dedicated: Barack Obama’s or Hillary Clinton’s? I asked politically inclined pedestrians at St. Marks Place for their Obama agitprop, but nobody bit. “I can’t give you my pin,” Jed, 39, said apologetically. “But you can buy one in Union Square!” When I asked Leslie, 29, for her Obama T-shirt, she scoffed. “Hell no, girl. Get your own. It’s only $20!” I offered her $50—even $100—but she was adamant: “You gotta buy it on his site ’cause then the money goes into his campaign.” Turns out Clinton supporters aren’t so shrewd. Sixty-year-old Clinton fan Linda gave me her pin for free!

PAY PALS
Okay, so New Yorkers won’t sell me their spandex, SpongeBob gear or Obama swag. But what about themselves? At Starbucks, I found Geoffrey, 50, sipping a vanilla latte and offered him $20 to chat for one hour. Flustered, he said, “I hang out with people because I want to, not to make money.” In the Whole Foods on Houston Street, I offered Nikesha, 35, $30 an hour to be my BFF. “Are you kidding me?!?” she said. I shook my head. “You don’t have to pay people to be your friends.… Just be yourself, honey.” At the H&M on Fifth Avenue, Charlotte, 18, agreed to $150 an hour for BFF status—“but only if you’re not scary.” Andrew, 25, in Bryant Park, was more altruistic: $50 for one hour of hang time. “But what if I weighed 100 pounds more?” I asked. “It wouldn’t change,” he said. “It’s not like I’m trying to get with you.” Ouch!

Conclusion: Recession or not, we still have our dignity. Seventy-two percent of New Yorkers are not for sale!

See previous New Yorkers are...