Cast & crew

Sidewalk

2010
1h 14m

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

YOUR RATING

SIDEWALK is a feature length documentary about the lives of the homeless book and magazine vendors who ply their trade on the streets of Greenwich Village. It is based on the award winning book of the same name. It takes the viewer into the unseen world of the New York City sidewalk book vendor. Many of the books come from recycling bundles put out every morning around the city. The vendors in our story scour the city daily for the treasures "thrown out" by their wealthier neighbors. The books and magazines thus found are displayed on tables set up around 8th Street and 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village. It is a hard life in which vendors must be with their tables at all times or risk losing everything in a police sweep of unmanned tables. As one critic put it, "SIDEWALK, is a portrait of people on the extreme margins of urban society, persevering to make "an honest living."

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Documentary

SIDEWALK chronicles the lives of primarily black homeless book vendors and magazine scavengers who ply their trade along 6th Avenue between 8th Street and Washington Place in New York City. ... Read allSIDEWALK chronicles the lives of primarily black homeless book vendors and magazine scavengers who ply their trade along 6th Avenue between 8th Street and Washington Place in New York City. By briefly comparing those book vendors with the history of book vending along the Seine i... Read allSIDEWALK chronicles the lives of primarily black homeless book vendors and magazine scavengers who ply their trade along 6th Avenue between 8th Street and Washington Place in New York City. By briefly comparing those book vendors with the history of book vending along the Seine in Paris, the film speaks to the efforts of North American and European societies to rid pu... Read all