Rate Street Food

Click on this link to rate different food vendors in NYC.  You can also get great advice on which carts to visit for foods that tickle your fancy.

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/United_States_of_America/New_York_State/New_York_City-841252/Local_Customs-New_York_City-Street_VendorsStreet_Food-BR-1.html

A LA CART the site is almost complete

New Video

The King of Falafel from Tais on Vimeo.

A LA CART screening

A LA CART the film will be screened on Tuesday, May 20, 2008, at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The time as of now is tentative between the hours of 2p.m. to 7p.m. When we know the exact time, we’ll post it. Bring friends, families, and loved ones to film. We would love to see you there!

A LA Cart: The Site

For those who don’t know, this is our blog, but we are currently building out site which will go live at the end of this month. We will post the url.

The site will be totally multimedia consisting of:

• A Timeline of how street vending in New York City progressed
• A Map of the most popular street vendors in the city and the ones featured in our film
• Clips and a trailer about our film, A LA CART
• And loads of videos, slideshows, and recipe

The site will also link to this blog, so you can go one place to get all things A LA CART.

A LA CART: The Film

Our documentary A LA CART: The Real Street Vendors of New York, is now complete. We will release a trailer of it on the site in the week to come.

From Egypt to New York City

Slideshow:

Suleyman and Mustafa’s cart – Midtown Manhattan.

Green Carts Passed

The Green Cart legislation, also known as intro 665, put forth by Mayor Bloomberg to add more fruit and vegetable carts to certain areas in New York City, where there are health disparities, was passed last week Wednesday, Feb. 27. This was a victory for the administration, but it also was a frustration to many vendors who advocate the city to increase permit cap from 3,000, which many vendors consider very low. Vendors resent the fact that the only way that they could get a permit under this new legislation is by selling fruits and vegetables, which they say don’t sell well. It will be interesting to see how this will all play out in the future.

Welcome to A la Cart!

You see them all around city.  They are almost on every block. They feed thousands of New Yorkers everyday from their carts.  Food vendors are an intergral part of of “Big Apple.” There are more than 10,000 street vendors in New York City. It is estimated that more than 80 percent of them are immigrants. They work long hours under harsh conditions, counting on good weather to sell their goods and services on the public sidewalk. All over New York City, there are hot dog vendors, pretzel vendors, flower vendors, book vendors, shoe shiners, street artists. They are all struggling to make ends meet.

The purpose of our project is to capture the essence of what it means to be a street vendor and the problems the encounter on a day to day basis.  W We want to you to take advantage of our multimedia presentation of the New Yorkers Guide to street vending. Right now we are building the site; but stay tuned for maps, vendor profiles, slide shows, vendor recipes, and so much more. We want you to be well informed to travel to any vendor in the city and order al la cart!