Take Back Our Sidewalks

I wish the Mayor would enforce the present laws against the vendors, peddlers and “artists” legal and illegal who operate with so little regulation on our city streets. I also ask that the city go back to the courts and ask them to define who is an artist. Certainly, the Russian dolls, the Trade Center photos, the glass gadgets that are supposedly being sold as art, and depriving us of the stately area that used to exist in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, cannot be “ART.”
Our city is beginning to resemble a third world city. We have peddlers, vendors and so-called artists selling things like Russian dolls; paintings; photographs; painted names on paper; purses; hats; trinkets and jewelry on some of the finest streets. They restrict access to our streets, and mean the loss of trade to legitimate businesses in regular stores.
And please spare me the answer that these people need to earn a living. Prostitution gives a living to pimps and prostitutes but we do not encourage it on our city streets.
This is a big business since it is the same cheap handbags being sold all over the city. These businesses are uglifying our city and blocking our sidewalks.
So I ask the Mayor, who seems to use the subways and streets as we do, to enforce the present rules and seek new ones to curtail this growing abuse of our city streets.
Rita Krich
Bayside