HOT DOG STAND
West and North Moore Streets
APRIL 8, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 102

This hot dog and lemonade stand served the dock workers, merchants, and wholesale customers of the produce market. Abbott made several studies of street vendors, including Roast Corn Man Side and Traveling Tin Shop in Brooklyn. That all three were included in the book Changing New York attests to their picturesque appearance and to the public's interest in peddling. In 1938, the Commissioner of Markets promulgated regulations confining all 14,000 of the city's pushcart peddlers to city-run enclosed markets.

Although licensing and geographical restrictions continue to control the trade, street vendors remain a New York fixture and a source of ongoing debate. Today's hot dog stands are still picturesque, sporting umbrellas and serving hot dogs from covered pans of hot water. Bottled and canned soft drinks, however, have eliminated the need for lemonade-dispensing milk cans.

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