1993

In the early 1990s, when you stopped at a red light, your car’s windshield might get a cleaning from a squeegie person who was hoping you’d tip them for their service. If you didn’t want them to work on your windshield, you would turn on your wipers and they got the message. Otherwise, you could get a clean windshield for the price of a small tip.

The squeegie men were in the spotlight a lot in 1993 because of the New York City mayoral race, which was a few months before I made this card. David Dinkins was defending his seat against Rudy Guiliani – and the squeegie men got caught in the political crossfire. Giuliani ran on a campaign that espoused the "broken windows theory" which said if petty street disturbances were tolerated (i.e. broken windows and squeegie men), it invited more serious crimes. Thus, he vowed - if elected - that he would rid the city of the squeegie men (which he eventually did once he was elected). Meanwhile, in October of 1993, before the election took place, Dinkins’ police commissioner Raymond Kelly actually did launch a crackdown on squeegie men.

I was intrigued by this red-light interaction and all the hubbub surrounding it and wanted to capture being on the other side of the windshield. I called a car service car (RIP Sabra and Carmel!) and told the driver about our caper. He gladly obliged and drove us around until we found some squeegee men (at 96th and 1st) and I asked one of them if he’d be open to being in my photograph. It was easier and a higher paying gig for him than washing more windshields. The car service driver is off-camera, yet his tinsel on the dashboard was all him.

This year, in addition to going back to the darkroom and printing the photos in black and white, I also hand-colored each of them with Marshall’s photo oils.