On Wyckoff, between Starr and Troutman, just around the corner from House of Yes (2 Wyckoff Ave.), there’s Hana Natural (24 Wyckoff Ave.), a 24-hour market that’s too big to be a bodega yet too small to be a proper grocery store. It’s spacious, clean, well-stocked and well-lit. They have fresh produce and dry-good staples; ample international condiments and imported snacky curios; beer, THC tonics and those new-fangled kratom seltzers, as well as extensive deli-counter offerings and other sundry prepared foods (the squid salad has absolutely no right being as good as it is, though I don’t think it’s made in-house). It’s all a little too expensive, but the closest supermarket is a few distant blocks away, just south of Maria Hernandez, and location is everything.
Outside the front entrance, you can be almost certain to find at least one of a handful of regular panhandlers. That’s their turf. If you live in the neighborhood and frequent this market, you might start to recognize their faces. Most people just walk on by. Some don’t even say “thank you” when one of them holds the door. Maybe that’s understandable—it’s a fairly inconsequential service nobody asked for, and I think a lot of people operate under the notion that if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile.
“I see the world as really narcissistic right now,” says Anthony, a military veteran with a degree in philosophy. He tells me that he wishes people would “show more compassion. Be a human being. Treat people how you wanna be treated. So many people are so, like, kinda ruthless, and really uncaring.”
He’s had a rough go of it—chronic back pain from a work-related injury, and leg pain from shrapnel sustained in Afghanistan stop him from finding steady work. His family can’t or won’t help support him, he says, and what little assistance he does receive from the VA tends to go to his daughter, currently enrolled in Yale.
Jonathan Pagan, who commonly goes by Yankee, echoed the sentiment. “There’s no unity without the community,” he says. You can make someone’s day that much better “just by acknowledgement—‘Hey,’ ‘How ya doin,’ ‘Goodnight,’ ‘Have a good day, God bless.’ Love thy neighbor, y’know?”
The cycle of poverty can be nearly impossible to get out of. “There has to be rich and poor,” says Robert, a Bronx native and the son of a jazz musician. “Because if it was all rich, you couldn’t control nobody. And without control, there’s no power.”
Now in his mid 60s, Robert will freely tell you he made bad decisions in his youth and associated with less-than-savory individuals.
His keen sociological eye is all too aware of a predatory system that isn’t broken, but in fact works just as intended: “The system don’t want everybody to get apartments. Because there’s a lot of apartments available, [but] they make it hard for you to even get back on track. The way the system runs is that they need chaos.”
I started ingratiating myself with the crew in front of Hana Natural in part because it felt wrong to see them every day and not extend them that basic courtesy. But it wasn’t just that—as a Philadelphia transplant, it’s not lost on me that I have something of a tacit civic duty to not merely be an innocuous denizen, but a positive contributor to the community.
“There’s all these things about ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘Free Ukraine.’ People gotta free [themselves] first,” muses Robert. “They’re not worried about what’s going on in their lives and what’s going on in their society. I mean, you in America, why [are] you worried about what Putin’s doing to Ukraine?” I can’t say I entirely disagree. Not to say that you shouldn’t think globally, but you definitely should act locally.
“War costs a lot of money,” says Yankee. “If our government showed attention to the people instead of war, [we could] build more schools, more fundamental things for the youth. More for society.” Our city taxes don’t go toward the war machine, but Yankee’s point about government misspending still stands. I think a lot of us feel powerless in the face of institutionally standardized misappropriation of funds, but what can we do at a granular level to alleviate that stress?
Walk through Maria Hernandez Park on any given day, and you’ll be inundated with canvassers supporting a plethora of good-hearted causes. I have as many left-wing sympathies as any modern Bushwiqueño, but I don’t have the money to throw into some opaque organization, nor the time (or, let’s face it, the will) to research these entities (Planned Parenthood notwithstanding).
So I started offering what I could to the panhandlers I see every day. Normally I’ll grab them something from the shop—a sandwich, a soda, a beer. Anthony’s regular order is a Sunkist and a package of Haribo fizzy cola gummies.
I don’t always have the money to spare. I’m now a de facto former advertising copywriter, so the proliferation of LLMs has eaten my lunch (so it goes). But I have something arguably just as valuable to offer: my time. Don’t underestimate the value of a smoke and a chat. I’ve built a solid rapport with Robert in particular. We’re both music buffs, and as a Gen-X New York native, he has some great stories of the early days of punk and hip-hop. We’ve bonded over finer Clash songs, differing opinions on the better work of The Police (ACAB does not mean Stewart Copeland), and he’s turned me on to some great jazz instrumentalists like bassist Paul Chambers.
That little bit of humanity appears to go a long way. One afternoon, Yankee came bounding across the street, calling my name. “Me and Robert were talking about you yesterday,” he told me. “I say, ‘I never ask that dude for money,’ ’cus he always asks what I want from the store and I’d rather have that. But more than anything, I appreciate the acknowledgement.”
Anthony’s philosophy is to “be generous to your fellow person. If someone needs something more than I do, I’ll give it to them.” He’s not lying—I’ve seen him give money that he sorely needs to somebody else. I’ve seen Robert pick up a dollar that someone unknowingly dropped and give it back to them. “Because you [always] get the blessings back.” I have indeed gotten some of those blessings back.
Anthony gave me a Lego Darth Maul alarm clock that he found because he thought I would like it (to be honest, I’m not sure what I did or said to imply that I’m a Star Wars fan, but I appreciated the gesture). Robert gave me a book of rock ‘n roll true stories. One afternoon I was hungry and short on cash, and Miguel—another panhandler, whose shaggy hair and beard give him a passing resemblance to Che Guevara—gave me one of his al pastor tacos. I didn’t even ask.
But the greatest blessing of all is the feeling of knowing that I’m doing direct, tangible good in my neighborhood. I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true. These are good people, often victims of circumstance. I think that’s what prevents most people from engaging with them; it’s so easy to see oneself reflected in the less fortunate, knowing that what separates them is gossamer thin, and the fear of that reflection can all too easily manifest as disdain. There but for the grace of God go we.
If we all take those small opportunities to be kind, we’re not only uplifting others, we’re uplifting ourselves. A rising tide raises all ships, right? And I have it on good authority that you’ll get the blessings back.
Photos by Rob Mellinger.
Rob Mellinger is a writer, musician, and layabout residing in Bushwick. Find him on Substack and Instagram.
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