The stretch of pavement in Queens where Liliana Sanchez used to sell aguas frescas has been empty since city sanitation police forced her to pack up her pop-up tent canopy. Her 16-year-old daughter now spends school nights and weekends busing tables to help pay rent. Across the street from Corona Plaza, sales at Alondra Cardoso’s hair salon have dipped 30%, or some $200 to $300 dollars a week, since the clientele from the former street vendor market no longer venture into her shop. Delivery worker Jorge Marin, 35, now orders breakfast from a bakery at a nearby intersection. He used to load up on tamales and yogurt and steaming cups of champurrado at the market, which expanded during the height of the pandemic. Now, at the bakery, he said he spends more for less. “It’s been dead,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said of the plaza since the vendors’ departure. “It’s taken the life out of the community.” The scene on a recent day in Corona Plaza, Queens, where a crack...
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