The first is called Mohammed, the second Ali. “Between us, we are Muhammad Ali”, they laugh. Before adding: “But we don’t do boxing, we sell newspapers. » They show their store, Casa Magazines, arguably the busiest newsstand in New York. Thousands of journals – “2,000 references” supports one, “2,500” assures the other, “in short, a lot”have fun again – are stacked in the tiny space at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 12e street, in the West Village neighborhood.
At a glance, you can see everything: famous or very specialized fashion magazines, Japanese, French or Brazilian cultural magazines, great American classics (Time, Newsweek), the local Bible (the New YorkMagazine) and so many others. “Ask, and if we don’t have it, we’ll find it for you”, assures Mohammed Ahmed, owner of the premises since 1994. Quickly joined by Syed Khalid Wasim, nicknamed Ali, to support him.
The first was born in India and the second in Pakistan. It’s hard to get more New Yorker than the two men. They shout at the customer with a banter you only find here – a hangover from the time when Manhattan still had working-class neighborhoods – they sell him with the same disinterested phlegm as well as a German magazine filled with photos of naked men than a very serious economics journal, work seven days a week, from dawn to dusk. And they know the whole neighborhood, this West Village once the cradle of a bohemian, now one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city.
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In a metropolis often caricatured as impersonal, they keep the keys of a regular customer, or ask another regular to keep the cash register while they are in stock. Recently, actress Julianne Moore, a neighbor and loyal customer, told the New York Times that when it appears on the cover of a magazine, the newsstand duo puts about fifteen copies on display.
“Today, if a customer wants a magazine, it’s because he really likes it. So we have to make sure he finds it every time he comes to our house. »Syed Khalid Wasim
New York has changed, and so has the print media. When he arrived in the West Village, Mohammed Ahmed was selling more than 300 copies of New York Times every Sunday. Today, it flows less than half throughout the weekend. ” We have to fightsays Ali. Today, if a customer wants a magazine, he really likes it. So we have to make sure he finds it every time he comes to our house. »
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