Matisse, Monet, and Audrey Hepburn are back on the poster racks in front of the 116th Street gates.
They were all in legal limbo last week after a New York City police officer told dreadlocked street vendor Michael Wells that he could not continue selling posters there. While the issue appears resolved for now, the incident sparked a week of uncertainty and lost revenue for Wells, who has become a well known figure after selling here for seven years.
On Tuesday, Aug. 31, Wells and his wife, Helenia, say they were approached by an NYPD officer. According to the vendor, the officer said he was responding to a complaint from a local resident, and told Wells that his stand was violating vending regulations.
“I was threatened with my merchandise being confiscated and possibly arrest if I didn’t move,” Michael Wells said.
A Columbia security officer on duty at the gates on Tuesday morning, who requested anonymity when speaking about security issues, corroborated Wells’ account the next day.
“He wasn’t upset. He just wanted to get his point across that he knew how he was allowed to set up, and there was some discrepancy there,” the officer said.
The NYPD’s 26th Precinct deferred comment to a department spokesperson who had no official record of the incident, likely because Wells was not arrested.
Wells didn’t want to risk setting up again the next day, so he spent Wednesday with Columbia’s Office of Government and Community Affairs and Department of Public Safety to verify that there were no internal complaints. He was told there were none, which a Columbia spokesperson also confirmed to Spectator.
Wells then spent Thursday morning at the 26th Precinct’s community affairs office in an attempt to convince an officer to let him stay in his favorite spot.
“The community affairs officer said that what to do about a complaint of this nature is basically under the discretion of the individual officer,” Wells said after the meeting.
With no concrete answer as to whether he would be asked to move again, Wells set up in his usual location on Thursday afternoon, hoping to stop the financial losses he had already incurred from not selling during two days of orientation.
“Every day is crucial. I can never tell what days I’ll lose because of rain, the street fairs, Jewish holidays. Time is really of the essence,” he said.
Since then, Wells said he has seen the officer who asked him to leave drive by multiple times, but has faced no further repercussions.
THE JAZZ MAN
Long before he was a poster man, Wells was a jazz man. While filling out postcards to send back home to San Francisco at a Jazzmobile concert in 1995, he sold a few to other audience members. Soon, he was following the Jazzmobile around the city selling postcards of jazz artists, then branched out to selling photographs and posters on the Upper West Side and into Harlem.
“Back then, I didn’t know there were rules,” he said.
Wells admitted that one of the violations the officer cited, not having the poster prices displayed, was accurate. His displays now read, “All posters $12.”
Despite fixing their signage, Wells and Helenia say they still have a cloud of uncertainty hanging over them—something with which Michael is quite familiar. He served nine years as a board member and a stint as co-director of the Street Vendor Project, a division of the nonprofit Urban Justice Center that fights for vendors’ rights.
In that job, he helped defend dozens of vendors before the Environmental Control Board, the city court for code violations like the ones for which Wells was cited.
“For so many vendors, English is a second language, and any contact with the police is a harrowing experience. I’d like to not have to defend myself the way I’ve defended other people,” he said.
Wells said he has mostly retired from vending for health reasons related to asthma, and the first five weeks of Columbia’s school year are among the only times he still sells—specifically because he is so rarely bothered at this location.
“Up here, everyone is looking forward to their lives, not just surviving. The energy up here is always a rejuvenating thing,” he said, wearing a light blue Columbia T-shirt. “That’s why I was really taken aback. This is usually a no-hassle gig where people really appreciate what we’re doing.”
CAMPUS TRADITION
From a financial standpoint, Wells is hopeful that he will be left alone for long enough to sell the thousands of posters he bought for this season. If he were asked to leave again, he said he would be unlikely to come back to Columbia.
“I hadn’t been in a place where my livelihood could be impacted by the capriciousness of one person for a long time,” he said. “If I can’t negotiate that element before next year, I’d rather not even work.”
For now, he and Helenia are doing brisk business as upperclassmen arrive on campus.
On a recent day, one student was picking up posters the vendor held for him while he went on an NSOP walking tour. Many others said this was their third or fourth year buying dorm décor from the stand.
“It’s tradition now. Freshman year, I bought some black-and-white scenes of New York, and last year I had one of Matisse’s ‘Goldfish,’” Media Brecher, BC ’11, said while buying a Monet print.
“Let me get you a really special bag,” Helenia said. She slid Monet’s “Sunflowers” into a bag printed with “Jazz Is Life” before turning to the next customer.
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