‘Side Walk’ by Mitchell Duneier & Barry Alexander Brown
This documentary film zoomed into the lives of mainly street peddlers such as homeless men and women that are earning mere amounts of money everyday by selling second hand or “recycled” books and magazines found in the trash and from other unconventional sources. The documentary focuses on African American men as well as a Korean lady and traces the course of their lives from the reason of their poverty to where they land up after years of drugs, alcoholism and everyday struggle.
The research method used by Barry Alexander was participant observation as he himself went and placed himself on 6th Avenue to get a first hand perspective on the lives of the people. Informal interview was a second research method as questions were asked, face to face to retrieve even more information about their past education and present living situation. While a few men bounced from friend’s and relative’s couches others made shelter in a subway stations or in storage rooms.
The documentary also glanced over issues of health and sanitation for these homeless people. Lack of restrooms, leaves them with no option but to urinate in a cup. Thus, questions of political involvement comes into question. As told in the documentary San Francisco was successful in building public restrooms for pedestrians as well as the homeless, however the upkeep and maintenance turns out to be extremely expensive for the government.
While some professionals such as a female novelist, Jade Johnson feels like the inhabitants of 6th Avenue are essential to the society as they hold responsibility and a sense of ownership towards the city others feel quite the opposite. Others state that mental and psychiatric help needs to be provided to such individuals as no man with a rational mind would choose to sell second hand books on the streets. They feel like it is also unfair competition to the bookstore owners who are paying rent and minimal salary to their employees. Lastly the book stands also hinder the use of the sidewalks for pedestrians and passersby.
