NEW YORK — In New York City, even sidewalk space is coveted real estate. Street vendors sometimes spend a fortune or languish for years on waiting lists to acquire one of the permits that allow them to sell goods in tightly regulated locations.
But once a year, there’s an exception, laid out in an artfully worded city ordinance: During the month of December, anyone may sell “coniferous trees” just about anywhere — no license required.
It’s a rare tree-for-all. Peddlers flock in from across North America. Big trucks carrying huge loads of trees arrive in the dead of night. Stands selling coniferous trees (some people, but not the city, call them Christmas trees) sprout everywhere.
The annual tree ritual brings New Yorkers together on village-like corners abuzz with neighborly chatter amid twinkling lights.
“I like to walk through the smell,” says Tim Albright, a customer taking a deep whiff of a cluster of trees this week.
And then there’s that other special green attraction: the smell of money that comes with the right to operate tree stands round the clock, free of charge, no license needed. That lures hardy entrepreneurs such as Tom Gilmartin, a 62-year-old commercial fishing captain from Alaska.
He rolled into town with his wife and 12-year-old son in a pickup truck.
They sell up to 500 trees each season, averaging an income of about $14 per hour.
