Christopher Caines

Behavior

Avant-garde begging

Three recent sitings, all near 14th Street and Fifth Avenue on the Village/Chelsea border, of imaginative recession-era humor-driven begging strategies:

A young guy, hiphop-stylin', on the move, with a sign on his chest reading: "Keeping it real: Need money for weed" and a small pizza box with a slot in it, with "Donations" written on top attached to the sign.

A sad-looking heavyset woman sitting on a fire hydrant holding up a crude corrugated-cardboard sign that says: "Tired of prostitution. Need money. Please help."

A trustafarian Indie rock type—many tattoos and piercings, scruffy, bearded, Williamsburgian—sitting on the sidewalk holding up another crude corrugated-cardboard sign, this one reading: "Need money for beer. Had to be honest. Please help."

Every New Yorker needs to devise a triage system for beggars. Mine is, I always give money to street musicians (unless their music is unbearably bad, which is rare) and people missing a limb or limbs. So I didn't "donate" to any of these three. But I appreciate their efforts.

near 14th Street and Fifth Avenue on the Village/Chelsea border