Eliana Jaramillo has worked at the corner of 43rd and 6th for 28 years.
Eliana Jaramillo stands on three-inch sandals on top of a four- or five-inch platform at the intersection of 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue for about four hours a day, and has done so for more than twenty-eight years.
Jaramillo moved to the United States almost thirty years ago from Bolivia, and has seen her corner change a lot. “I used to serve mainly the poor, but these days I’ve got diplomats,” she joked in Spanish while she stood across the street from the glass-paned Bank of America Tower.
She’s worked at the same corner for so long, Jaramillo proudly says she’s garnered a good number of regulars. A couple of them hang out around her cart, sitting and talking to each other whenever Jaramillo gets a break. When they did get a moment to talk to her friends, she pined for easier days.
Jaramillo works on average about four hours a day, every weekday.
“God bless Guliani,” she said, adding that increasing vendor fines and tax rates are the major burdens for her. “I just don’t understand why the poor are taxed more than the wealthy here,” she said. “Taxes are what kill you.”
On average she takes about $60 home a day, and although it fluctuates she said she can’t justify the time for the little profit. She said that she has to keep her prices low in order to compete with neighboring carts, but that the food and supplies she stocks aren’t getting any cheaper. As a result, Jaramillo said that she plans on retiring right after her husband does. “I used to sell a lot in a day, but there’s too much competition these days,” she said.
For now, Jaramillo doesn’t seem terribly worried about losing her regulars, though. “I think no one wants to take them from me.”
Over the course of an hour, she sliced at least 96 buns open. And at a dollar each, it seemed like today was a good day. “And she goes about saying things are too slow,” her friend mused.
Jaramillo at work with a customer.