Journalism School

I really went "digging in the crates" for this one. It's one of my favorite stories from when I was doing my master's degree in journalism. I had long been fascinated with a governmental housing projects called Queensbridge, which is near the Queensboro Bridge, and had decided to head there to "find a story" when my teacher told us to go to a neigborhood we had never been before and "find" a story. I remember I was so nervous when I got out of the subway, but I calmed down when I realized that there was some kind of story going on at a deli in the area -- and that wound up being the story below. Enjoy.

A Night in a Queens Deli

The busy Akrah deli 

By Chad Smith 
May 30th, 2008

At 1 a.m. the Akrah Deli in Queensbridge locks its doors. But business is not over.

Until seven in the morning the deli’s employees serve the goods — whether it’s a turkey sandwich, Snickers bar or bottle of malt liquor — through a bullet proof cube, which swivels to allow the cashier in the locked store to collect money from the customer on the street.

“We’ve had kids selling cocaine in the store; the shoplifting’s ridiculous; we could get held up,” Jaber Mansour, Akrah’s chief cook, said on a recent Friday as he threw a mound of roast beef on the grill. “There’s no way we can keep our doors open that late.”

During the night the bulletproof cube speaks for the fear felt in this predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood in northwest Queens, known for its tough streets and insular culture. But during the day as customers stream in and out of the deli the mood is different. During the day, humor, familiarity and patience hold the social fabric tenuously together.

“This is how you’re going to make my sandwich: I want bacon. I want white bread. You’re going to put mayo on once slice of the bread and not the other. I want American cheese, double cheese. I’m serious,” shouts a man wearing a red baseball cap standing underneath an “order here” sign. Mansour, 42, rolls his eyes but gets out the bread.

“You can’t have a quick temper and work here,” says Jeffery Saleh, 19, whose Yemeni father owns this deli on 20th St. and 40th Ave. “People get hostile if you’re talking back to them.” Saleh, second in command at the stove, often wins the crowd over, especially the girls, with a smile he flashes without hesitation.

“Jeffery, Jeffery, you remember what I ordered?” a teenage girl asks a little later at the sandwich counter.

“Salami, right?” Saleh says in the thick Arabic accent he is yet to shed, even after living in the U.S. for two years, above the deli.

“That’s right, Jeffery. You’re good,” the girl says,”Jeffery,”she continues after hearing he had difficulty pronouncing her order, “Spell salami.”

“I’ll spell it if you define it,” he retorts.

Most of Akrah’s customer’s live down the block in the Queensbridge Houses, the largest housing project in the U.S., with over 7,000 residents. Illicit drug sales and turf wars have long been a problem here, especially in the 80’s and 90’s. Although numbers show crime has dropped — the 2007 murder rate was down 76% since 1995, according to New York Police Department statistics — some say the neighborhood seems not to have changed much.

“My school got shot up last week,” a young girl says to a chorus of “Oh my gods,” belted out by three middle age woman in response. All four stand under the “order here” sign. After the young girl leaves, one says, “Isn’t that horrible? This little girl is trying to get an education and her school’s gonna get shot up.”

Neighborly concern is echoed later, when a flotilla of baby carriages assembles in the deli. Daycare has let out and several mothers stand around chatting. None in the group seems bothered when one mother reproaches another’s errant child trying to head for the deli’s exit.

The afternoon wears on. Some people come in for sports drinks, chips, a sandwich or candy. An equal number come in for alcohol.

Colt 45, Molton XXX, Steel Reserve, Old English. All are favorites and all are well stocked. Colt 45, a lower-end beer, seems to fly from the shelves, an unsurprising choice: Queensbridge’s average gross annual income is less than $20,000 and the average rent is a little more than $300 a month.

Later, a tinny female voice is heard singing in Arabic from a hidden stereo behind the counter; hip hop is heard outside.

Mansour and Saleh say they’re at best ambivalent about working in an area where they’re a minority.

“[For two Middle Easterners] working here isn’t bad, but it’s not good,” says Mansour, originally from the West Bank, Palestine.

“The one thing I can’t take is the racist remarks. I hate that. When someone who doesn’t know me walks in here, calling me an ‘A-rab’ or calls me a terrorist, that hurts me. But what can I do? I can’t fight with everybody.”

###

*This story was published on Pavement Pieces, an NYU Web site that showcases journalism students’ work.  https://journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/archives/pavement/index.html