Outside the stadium, on a gray-tiled path between East 161st Street and East 153rd Street that used to be player parking in the days of the old Yankee Stadium, a different group of performers showed up for work. 

For almost every Yankee home game, the same group of musicians, artists and food vendors set up shop hoping for crinkled dollar bills and loose change in their guitar bags and Home Depot buckets. 

“I’ve been here since the old stadium, so about 30-years,” said Luther Petty, a 75-year old saxophone player. His stage is a folding chair on the curb of East 161st, directly in front of Yankee Stadium. 

A St. Louis native, Petty began playing music early in life. 

“My Aunt naturally played piano, she taught me at about four or five-years old,” he said. “I have been playing classical since I was five or six.”

Now, Petty plays the soprano sax, a higher-register woodwind that he says matches his rhythm and vibe. 

“I do a medley of songs,” he said. “It changes with the time.” 

Petty is inspired by jazz and blues artists like Charlie Parker and Lee Morgan; his favorite song to play is “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.”  

Petty was told by another street musician friend, who had previously done well outside Yankee Stadium, that he should give it a shot. 

Since then, Petty has played outside Yankee Stadium through five world series wins and 15 division titles.  

Petty likes his spot, the closest “player” to Yankee Stadium who isn’t wearing pinstripes. 

“I choose the spot that is most lucrative for me,” he said. “I’ve been doing it a long time.”

Shaun Tracy sells pretzels and trades extras for stadium giveaways. Photo by Ryan Schwach

About 30 feet from Petty is Micheal Bailey, a painter from Chicago who has been selling art depicting Yankees and other sports stars outside the stadium for six-years. 

Bailey, 63, who also goes by “Zebra”, has been homeless for the last several years, but does well enough selling his art he can occasionally travel to other cities to sell. 

“I’ve got money in the bank,” he said b. “When I have enough money I get a hotel room. It’s hard living.” 

Bailey says in the 1990’s, he had a few businesses distributing and selling art, companies that went under around 2007 and cost him everything.  

“I made a whole lot of money from 95’ to 99’,” he said. “I went all over the country doing conventions and was doing over a million dollars a year. Now I just do my art…I’ve always been happy doing my art.”

He began painting at an early age in Chicago, and his first gallery came at his sister’ salon, which was called “Zebra”, hence his artist name. 

“I’ve been doing it since I was a kid,” he said. 

Naturally as a Chicago kid, he grew up a Bears and Cubs fan. Today, his favorite players to paint are Michael Jordan and former Bears Runningback Walter Payton. Football is his favorite sport to paint because its the most colorful.

Selling outside Yankee Stadium has been fruitful for Bailey, who likes his spot just off East 163rd Street. 

“The NYPD told me to come over here, and they were right,” he said. ”This is a good spot.” 

Bailey has given his art to Yankee legends Mariano Rivera and “Mr. October”, Reggie Jackson. 

“I saw Reggie in Houston,” he said. “Reggie came walking out and saw his painting and he came up to me smiling. He was really nice.” 

Once outside Yankee Stadium, a man came up and asked if he had any art of Yankees catcher Jose Trevino. Bailey was surprised and said he didn’t have Trevino, only more prominent players like Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Anthony Rizzo. 

“It was Jose Trevino,” Bailey said. The Yankee catcher bought the art of his teammates and brought them to the clubhouse, according to Bailey. 

One of Trevino’s teammates, Aaron Judge, had one of the most notable offensive seasons in the history of baseball. On Sept. 23, he was one home run shy of his 61st of the season, which would tie Roger Maris, another Yankee, for the most in a single season in the American League. As of this writing, the Yanks have wrapped up their regular season, and Judge finished with the record breaking 62 trips around the bases. 

Yankee fans may have Judge to thank for a historic season, but so does Bailey. 

“Judge adds at least $200 to my sales,” he said, adding that fans are more likely to buy his Aaron Judge art on nights he hits a homerun. 

Bailey isn’t the only one on the strip thanking Aaron Judge and his home runs for a bump in revenue. Stuart Stephenson, a Melodica-playing 56-year old Queens native, has also seen more money in his bucket thanks to Judge. 

“When they are winning it’s a little bit better, they are a little happier,” he said. “You have your bad days and your good days.” 

Stephenson, a self taught musician, plays a medley of songs from Sinatra, Micheal Jackson, and movies, and of course, songs like Take Me Out To The Ballgame. 

“I usually play at Citi Field. But when they’re out of town, I come here,” he said. A Queens native, Stephenson is partial to the Mets.

His favorite player is Darryl Strawberry, a right fielder who played for both the Yankees and the Mets. So when playing in The Bronx, he wears a Strawberry Yankee jersey, and when playing in Queens, wears a Strawberry Mets jersey. 

“He was a very good player,” he said. “He was a very dominant player.” 

Once a mailroom employee, Stephenson has been playing both of New York’s baseball parks, Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, for about a year. 

“I said ‘forget it, you know, let me try this and see how it works out’,” he said. Stephenson has been successful in both places, making enough money to live on and travel everyday. He likes his spot at Yankee Stadium too, because it’s far enough away from other musicians, and it’s a good place for people.  

“We can’t be close to each other because, you know, it’ll mess up the vibe in the music,” he said. “You meet different people every day. You don’t see the same people every day unless they have season tickets, then they recognize you.” 

The Mets are also in the playoffs this year, which may mean a Bronx day game and a Queens night game.  

Stuart Stephenson and his melodica. Photo by Ryan Schwach

“I’m gonna try to do both,” Stephenson said.  

Shawn Tracy, a pretzel vendor with a makeshift grill set up on a cart, also bounces from Citi Field to Yankee Stadium, depending on who’s playing. 

“I was going to go to Citi tonight, but I came here instead because of Judge,” said Tracy, a Toyota car dealer who does this as a side-hustle.  “I just know when I need to make money, so I come here.” 

Tracy saw people selling outside stadiums as a young Met fan growing up on Long Island.  

“I saw people when I was young doing it, and I started doing it out of a shopping cart, but I upgraded,” he said. “It’s mostly just pretzels now. It’s easier, the cost is low.”

Pretzels are an interesting racket. A ballpark staple, people really only buy one or two on their way out of the stadium, but that gives Tracy an opportunity to get a little extra. In exchange for a sum of pretzels, Tracy trades for whatever the stadium giveaway was, for instance a bobblehead or a replica statue. His favorite is a bobblehead of former Mets pitcher Noah Syndegaard.  

The week prior, the Yankees were down three runs going into the waning innings against the Pirates, so fans were exiting early. Tracy swapped 15 pretzels for an unused ticket stub and got into the stadium in the 8th Inning. 

“They were leaving, so I asked,” he said. Tracy made it in time to see Aaron Judge’s 60th home run and Giancarlo Stanton’s game-winning, walk-off grand slam. 

As for if he ever samples his own product: “I’m kinda tired of it,” he said.  

Vendors, like Tracy and Alex Garcia, A Mexican immigrant who sells water bottles, take advantage of the stadium’s sometimes exorbitant prices, and try to get fans to buy cheaper merchandise or food. 

Luther Petty plays the trumpet with Yankee stadium in the background. Photo by Ryan Schwach

“If you keep it closed, you can take it with you,” Garcia shouted, luring in people with 2 for $5 deals.

“It’s good, I like the work, it’s good for me,”  Garcia said.  

Although some show up before the game, sell their merchandise, then duck out mid-game to relax or get food of their own, and only return to sell to the exiting crowd, guitarist David Spectra doesn’t show up until the end. 

Other than Thaddeus Adams, Spectra’s Hendrix-like shredding is the last thing fans hear before getting to their cars or the Metro-North. 

Spectra, who grew up in the South Bronx and now lives in New Brunswick, remembers specifically that he got into guitar “one year after Hendrix died,” which would be 1971. 

“If you grew Black neighborhood, what Hendrix did was electrify music,” Spectra said.

“Music was the last thing I ever thought of. I was supposed to be driving trains to the railroad to subways,” Spectra said. “That’s the only thing I ever wanted to do when I was young.”

Spectra did get to pursue both, driving subways for five-years while pursuing music both on stages and in the street. 

“I like the feeling I had when trains could never do that,” he said. “So that gave me another opening.” 

He says there is a craft to choosing the right spot. 

“You can find a spot where you can work fast and make money fast,” he said, adding that he thought the spot where he has played for the last few years outside the stadium was a lucrative one. 

Although, like many of the other performers and merchants who set up shop outside the stadium, there’s one thing about the job that attracts Spectra most. 

“The fact that I’m my own boss,” he said. 

The Yankees beat the Sox, 5-4. 

The post Between E 161st and E 153rd: The artists and merchants of Yankee Stadium appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

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He believes that UFOs are real, 9/11 and the JFK assassination were inside jobs, and that the moon landing was a hoax. 

He also wanted to be the next representative for the first Wisconsin congressional district. 

Barman is a 67-year old man from Indiana with a sizable white beard convincing enough that he has actually played Santa Claus in commercials for both K-Mart and Sears. He is currently running as a third party candidate in the already contentious congressional battle between incumbent Republican Bryan Steil, and Democrat Ann Roe. 

Steil got reelected on Tuesday, beating Roe 54 percent to 41 percent. 

Barman received local news attention after handing in his ballot petitions in an empty Modelo beer box. 

“They thought that was funny,” he said. 

He considers himself to be a far-right Libertarian, strong on the Second Amendment and immigration, but is also pro-choice.   

His party, “The Going Away Party” which is named for a joke in the late 60’s sketch comedy show “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” will appear third on the ballot, which is something Barman is putting stock in, along with general frustrations with the Republicans and Democrats. 

“I’m in the best spot to be on the ballot,” he told Pavement Pieces outside Tenuta’s, a famous deli in Kenosha. “They’ll look at the first two and they’ll say ‘I don’t want to vote Democrat, I don’t want to vote Republican’. And then they’ll say, ‘I want to vote. Look at this guy. He’s an independent, and he’s got his own party’.”  

Raised as a farmer, the grandson of union organizers, Barman has worked as a construction superintendent, managing the assembly of multi-million dollar high rises in Downtown Chicago, and also ran a heating and cooling company which had several Chicago-area Pizza Huts under contract.   

“I didn’t really know too much about politics or paid attention to it,” he said. 

That changed in 2006, when Chicago’s former mayor, Richard Daley, wanted to put a train through his town, and take some of the land from adjacent farmers. 

“So I went and tried to stop this…I did not want the city of Chicago to be in our area,” he said “And the train tracks were close to our farm.”

This led him to his first Congressional run, he lost, and then ran again in 2008.

Chuck Barman standing next to his campaign truck, which is painted with phrases including “send this truck to Washington!!” and “BarmanUSA.com.” Photo by Ryan Schwach

However, no train was ever built. 

Flooding is the other major issue that affected his old home in Indiana, as well as in Kenosha. 

“When the rain is bad in Chicago, they back us up in Northwest Indiana, and they back us up in the Fox River and then in the Des Plaines River here,” he said. “So when I moved up here 12- years ago, they did the same thing. The water is all connected to Chicago.”

If Barman had won, clearing up the water issue would be his first priority.  

“I want to stop them from flooding us here in Wisconsin,” he said. “The first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to get this water figured out.” 

Now in 2022, Barman is running for office again, this time with his “Going Away Party”. He’s arguing that Steil is nothing more than his predecessor, Paul Ryan’s puppet. 

“Paul Ryan is still our congressman,” he said. 

Barman’s ideals, which could be considered dangerous and harmful to many, come from a deep sense of distrust and even hatred for the powers that be, from both parties, he makes it known he didn’t vote for Donald Trump, and has voted for both Republicans and Democrats throughout his life. 

“When it comes down to it, I hate my government. I hate them,” he told Pavement Pieces. “Our government’s done nothing but wage war. That’s the only thing they do. Vietnam War, World War One, World War Two. That’s their industry.” 

He uses the flooding issues as an example, where the policy of officials in a major city like Chicago harms the rural counties in neighboring states. He also talks about political games played by leaders that harm trade, especially trade that feeds farmers like himself, like when then Vice President Biden called out Vladimer Putin. 

“He [Putin] stopped buying milk and cheese from our country. And it went down to $9, and it put farmers out of business, completely out of business, not just here, not just in Wisconsin, where King is cheese, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,” he said. 

He also called out the Covid closures, which shut his farm and forced him back into construction. 

“So with the COVID I was doing $125,000 a year, I would run 600 dozen eggs into Chicago. I had 14 restaurants…When we had COVID they shut all the restaurants down. Put me totally out of business. So in 2019 I did $125,000, 2020 I did zero,” he said. “So people think that those guys don’t affect small town America. They do.” 

The distrust is not exclusive to Barman, it was the same distrust that pushes the January 6 rioters, who Barman refers to as “idiots” who never should have gone to D.C, and many other Republican voters. 

“They’re not trustworthy,” Wisconsin resident Randy Quantrell said. 

“They are liars and they’re cheaters and they’re thieves,” Gary Mills, a 63-year old from Watertown, Wisconsin, said. “They have been blatantly lying to us.”

Mills said he didn’t trust Republicans either. 

Barman had a lot of optimism heading into Tuesday, despite fundraising zero dollars, and a member of Steil’s campaign only remarked that they knew Barman had once played Santa Claus. 

However, Barman remained optimistic up until election results came in, hoping his distrust is not uncommon among the voting public of the first congressional district. 

“When you do that, and you vote like that, that’s a protest vote,” he said.

Barman finished with just over 2,000 votes, about 0.7 percent. 

The post The Farmer, Santa Claus Impersonator, And Far-Right Conspiracy Theorist That Wants To Be Wisconsin’s Next Congressman appeared first on Pavement Pieces.