Street News

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Street News was a street newspaper in New York City sold by homeless people. It started in October 1989, founded by Hutchinson Persons and Wendy Oxenhorn, and helped launch the American street newspaper movement. The paper was sold for about a dollar, with vendors keeping most of the money. It was funded by donations, corporate support (including Cushman & Wakefield), and advertising, and it had support from Lance Primis, then-president of The New York Times. Ads for Street News were placed on subways and buses thanks to donated space from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. After panhandling on the subways was banned, vendors sold near metro stations.

Lee Stringer, a former homeless man, was the first vendor and later became an editor and columnist. The paper gained national attention after a New York Times article by Sam Roberts. Sales grew quickly, from about 50,000 copies to more than a million in four months, and celebrities like Paul Newman and Liza Minnelli contributed pieces.

Oxenhorn left after the first year, citing philosophical differences. The paper faced financial troubles in the early 1990s, and some staff left to start Crossroads Magazine. In 1991 the MTA banned hawking newspapers on the subways, leading to arrests of vendors and hurting sales. After Persons left, printer Sam Chen took over but financial problems continued into the mid-1990s as public attitudes toward the homeless shifted and efforts to move homeless people out increased.

By the mid-1990s sales declined, though Street News survived. Janet Wickenhaver became editor and associate publisher, shifting focus from celebrity content to social issues. The paper stayed afloat but never returned to its early boom. In 2002, John Levi "Indio" Washington Jr. was the editor. Street News printed a few thousand copies a year and was sold by a small team of about 15 vendors.

Eventually Street News stopped publishing. New York City has no official street newspaper today. The publication inspired many others, including Chicago's StreetWise, Boston's Spare Change News, and the UK's The Big Issue, and is seen as a pioneer of street papers worldwide.