10 Old-Fashioned Street Jobs That Once Defined New York City

Long before delivery apps, electric streetlights, chain repair shops, and modern sanitation systems reshaped everyday life, New York City’s streets were workplaces. As a kid growing up in the 1960s in the Bronx, I remember an old man pushing a cart down the block sharpening people’s knives. He was a bit of a scary gentleman, and none of the kids on the block ever messed with him. Residents could…