Vittorio De Sica called them 'Sciuscià' in his 1946 film of the same name which earned him the Oscar for best foreign language film, the first film to win the award, in the city of New York they are instead the famous 'shoeshine', a term from which comes the Neapolitan 'sciuscià', or street shoe shiners.
Once numerous at strategic points, today like white flies... It is a figure that once stood in the Big Apple like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the smoking manholes or any other iconic symbol of city.
A figure who also enchanted Stanley Kubrick, photographer for 'Look' magazine, before becoming a director, and who in 1946 created the photographic story of the 'Shoe Shine Boy', following Mickey,
A trade that has its roots in the 19th century with shoe shiners positioned with their high chairs in strategic places in the city, such as the main railway stations, including Grand Central and Penn Station, or near the skyscrapers of large companies .
Above all, it is impossible for the tourist not to notice and stop and look at someone sitting on these chairs holding a newspaper in hand, especially before the advent of technology, while shoeshine polishes or greases shoes of all kinds.
Nowadays the habit of having your shoes shined on the street is disappearing.
The sunset began above all with the Covid 19 pandemic which for months made close contacts between people impossible, favoring remote working and also a more casual style of clothing in the world of work where sneakers or shoes that don't require a coat of chromatin.
Interviewed by the Associated Press, Jairo Cardenas, usually positioned along the corridor that connects the nearby Times Square subway hub to the bus terminal in Port Authority, said the business of his business 'Alpha Shoes Repair Corp.'
it has dropped by 75% compared to the pre-pandemic period.
Currently he is left with only one shoe shiner, who in his heyday had up to 70 customers a day, now just over a dozen.
Despite this, there are those who want to remain positive, like David Mesquita, with two shoeshines in Grand Central, according to whom this profession will never completely disappear, because it is a small luxury that people want to indulge in, even if only once in a while .
(HANDLE).
