The Prince of Union Square

This past Sunday, Joe Ades quietly passed away at the age of 75.

Who was Joe Ades?

He was the ubiquitous carrot and potato peeler and pitchman at the Farmers’ Market of Union Square. On the three days a week when the Farmers’ Market was open, Joe could be seen sitting on a tiny folding bench, five to six white plastic containers before him, peeling carrots and potatoes into them with the ease and grace of a well trained musician. On days when the market wasn’t operating, Joe was stationed by Radio City Music Hall, or somewhere on a downtown Brooklyn street.

Joe Ades (pronounced AH-des) was one of those memorable, quirky New York City characters that remained both an attraction of sorts and a mystery all the same. When I first saw Joe, whose name I only learned after his death, my thoughts were not: “Oh, well there’s a happy guy keeping himself busy.” Instead, I always thought: “Poor, miserly old man! I wonder what got him to this point? At his age, out here braving the elements to make a couple of bucks, instead of being retired and enjoying his golden years.” And Joe did, most of the time, brave the elements to showcase his peeler. Some days under a sun with the heat of a thousand stage lights beating down on him, Joe would sit in his usual tweed jacket with leather patched elbows and collared shirt and tie and sell his wares. Like most New York City dwellers, we looked at him as a constant in our every-day commuter existence.

Simply by uttering a few words, people around Joe Ades became somewhat enraptured by his exquisite English accent and his on-air announcer’s voice. They were drawn to him, whether it was to really buy a peeler, or just to watch the “show” he put on. He would talk and talk and talk some more about his $5 potato and carrot peeler, barely catching a breath, with the passion of someone selling diamonds to a jeweler. He always managed to reel them in, sometimes having groups five to eight people deep straining their necks trying to catch a glimpse of the fast-talking gentleman salesman.

Joe Ades put in an honest full day’s work. And at day’s end, he would clean up so well, it was just but for a few tiny scraps of carrot-orange curly Q’s left behind that sold him out as having been there. I know I was not alone in feeling sorry for the man. On especially frigid days, I would see him and wonder if it was good for someone his age to have to sit at his post with just a scarf to keep him warm. I would take a peek at his hands, often wet and exposed to the elements, and see that they were red and raw from brutal winds and dropping temperatures. Yet, still he peeled, with speed and agility, countless vegetables over the years.

In speech he was quick witted and clever. Toss him a line and he’d back track with a slick answer without missing a beat. Just want to buy one of his amazing peelers? He’d make you buy two, three or even four by asking if you didn’t have any friends to gift them to, like him. He’d tell you he’s never had a complaint about the peelers and showcase them with the love and admiration of a proud parent. He was a salesman, a comedian and a stage actor all in one. He was the age my father is now, but unlike my father, he didn’t take a moment to smell the roses and to relax. He had been on wife number four and was now widowed. Perhaps he preferred the long hours of a street vendor, to long, lonely days in a cold apartment void of anyone he could love. He had a daughter, two sons and three grandchildren spread all over this big earth. I guess that is part of the reason he intrigued me, part of the reason I felt bad about him sitting out there all day. I kept thinking to myself: There but for the grace of God goes….my Dad.

He was a life-long salesman. He started as a 15–year-old kid in Manchester, England selling toys, kids’ books, and all manner of household goods. Perhaps he loved the business so much that even when he didn’t have to work, he still wanted to work. That alone is a wealth beyond measure – to love what you do so much that you would do it for free, if you had to.

Having said all of this about the slim, white bearded, elegant, well-spoken street vendor, imagine my surprise, and that of everyone he encountered on the nearly 20-year ‘career’ selling his peeler, to learn Joe Ades’s true roots. According to a 2006 story in Vanity Fair and an obituary in The New York Times, Joe Ades was not just getting by. Joe Ades was not a poor old man. On the contrary, Joe Ades was rich. He lived with his wealthy fourth wife in an apartment on the Upper East Side and when she passed on, he lived there alone.

Joe Ades dined at some of the City’s most expensive and exclusive restaurants, he sipped Veuve Clicquot champagne at the Café Pierre, he wore British-made Chester Barrie thousand-dollar suits and bold shirts and ties from Turnbull & Asser. He slept in a three-bedroom expansive apartment on Park Avenue and on the side he worked the streets of New York City, as if they were his own personal Broadway stage.

In all the years he sold his peelers, Joe never got a license to sell alongside the green market vendors. Perhaps he couldn’t ‘afford’ the cost of it. Oftentimes, he was chased away by policemen who, knowing the old gentleman, probably got tired of shooing him away and gave up. He eschewed boredom and liked the excitement of being among his fellow New Yorkers.

In the 2006 Vanity Fair piece, Joe was quoted talking about the quality, Swiss made peeler he loved to sell. “I love it for several reasons,” he said. “It’s portable; it works; I never get a complaint. Never ever. They’re not made in China. They’re Swiss! When people first see it they don’t believe it. They buy it skeptically, cynically. They can’t believe it’s going to do what I say it’ll do, but they take a chance and they buy it. And during the course of the sale, somebody will walk past—always do—and say, ‘I got one of those. They’re great!’ And it’s true—they’re not shills. You don’t need a shill with something like this.”

For all his spiel selling the peelers and all the long hours of sitting on an uncomfortably small folding bench and the elements under which he worked, Joe Ades probably never complained a day in his life. Selling became his passion many years before I ever witnessed the man, when he saw vendors at state fairs back home. Unlike so many of us, Joe Ades managed to live his passion and because he did, no matter what anyone thought about him, his life, his condition, or his status –Joe Ades could very well have been the happiest man in all of Manhattan Land!