ray alvarez of ray's candy

You probably know Ray's Candy Store as "the belgian fries place" or "the ice cream place" just off the corner of Seventh St. and Avenue A (113 Avenue A). It is owned and presided over, every night, by Ray Alvarez, a short, old guy with oversized glasses and a baseball cap willing to chat/mumble about anything with anyone. The store is something of a gathering place for lots of East Village mainstays like Mosaic Man Jim Powers, Clayton Patterson, Bob Arihood, and Tompkins Square Park crust punks. I talked with Ray late Tuesday night, just as the snow started to fall and the last wave of weeknight drinkers stopped in before they headed home. How long has the store been open? I’ve been here 32 years, since 1975. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The last vacation I’ve had was 1955, when I was a waiter. Everybody that works here, they’ve taken a vacation. But I cannot afford it; I need the money. There’s some jobs that I need to do: nobody knows how to wash the ice cream machine, mop the floor, nobody wants to order what we need and keep track of everything. So I am here, I do it. Have you ever missed a day? I’m here nights. Oh, right, you work nights. Have you ever missed a night? I get here, 6, 7:00 at night, until 10:00 am the next day. But I’ve never missed a day. Do you prefer the nights? It’s your store - why nights? Oh, nobody wants it. Nobody wants it. I hired one guy, I came to check out how he was doing, and he was sleeping on the floor! And the door was open. So I’ve been working the night for 32 years. He worked only one day. Well, he slept all night. You’ve really never missed a night? Do you get sick? I cannot afford to get sick. I even don’t’ have time to die - I am 74 years old. When the big man with the fork comes in to get me, I’ll say, “Get away, I’m busy.” You live upstairs? For 33 years. I was born in Turkey, 1933. Then I came here around 1955, then went back, and I moved here around 1964. I see that you’ve gotten some new sauces recently. I used to only have ketchup and mayo. One day this woman walked in and said, “My name is Mrs. Hellman, I am 86 years old.” I said, “I will marry you Mrs. Hellman, I don’t care how old you are; just ah, because you are rich, I marry you.” She said “no, I just want to sell you sauces. I heard you’re selling Belgian fries - I have sauces for that.” That was 10-20 years ago. But now all of a sudden you have 8 or 9 new sauces: chipotle. Why the new sauces? Oh. The new ones are hot. People - Spanish, Indians, some Americans - they like the hot. “You got anything hotter than that?” they say. “Yeah, Tabasco” I’d say. So I got the new sauces. I’ve seen an old picture of the store with an awning that says, “Truth, justice and the comics”. Whatever happened to that awning? Yeah, that was the slogan from Newsday. Newsday had that on their cover, and they gave me a free awning. And they stole my sign, a Breyer’s Ice Cream sign shaped like a leaf that said “Ray’s Ice Cream”, that I’d had for a very long time, and I don’t know what happened to it. But the Newsday awning fell apart after a few years. I’ve come into the store a few times and heard you complaining about your landlord. Yeah, her husband died and then she husband died. She came from Ukraine in 1950, and died 1982-83. So the son is in charge now, and he has about 25 buildings. He hired an agency to take care of the tickets, violations, all the run-around, for all the buildings. The agency gets 1/4 of every dollar he makes. They want to make money, so they raise my rent. Gotta get them quarters. Have you ever considered moving the store? No, no. I’ve decided to die here. If they let me stay here, one day I’ll drop dead. There seem to be a lot of local guys that hang around here. Yeah, there’s a lot of them that hang out here. Artists, a lot of different guys. This is like the heart of the East Village. They hang out here, they appreciate the atmosphere, they know each other, they know me. You don’t mind? No, no. They don’t smell, I don’t mind. Today someone came in that smelled bad. I said, “I’ll buy you coffee and a hot dog.” I put 3 hot dogs in one bun and gave them the coffee and said, “You gotta take it out. Free, but you gotta take it out.” Well, the big thing about the East Village now, for a long time I guess, but now too, is how it’s changed. This last change, the one we’re in the middle of now, when did it start? When Giuliani became mayor. He just didn’t tolerate any, anything, anything. He just wiped them out. So you think it started with Giuliani? Not Dinkins or Koch or .. No, no. It was Giuliani. At this point, a couple knocks on the door, which Ray locks around midnight. They order 4 sausages and fries. While Ray is in the back making food, a homeless woman knocks on the door. I yell, asking Ray if I should open the door, but he can’t hear me. After a minute of yelling, I open the door and let the woman in. As Ray walks back to the front of the store, he recognizes her. This woman was knocking at the front door. Oh, no no no, not this one in. You let the wrong one in buddy. She’s got to go! The woman paces the length of the narrow counterspace, knocking into the couple and me every pass. Look, you can’t do that! You’re pushy, you can’t be pushy! She remains in the store for an awkward three minutes, until I unlock the door and gesture to it while offering her a few dollars. The couple leaves a few minutes later. I’m really sorry Ray, I didn’t know. [I laugh] We were just talking about the homeless so I figured she was a regular. [Laughs] I regular pain, that’s what she is. She’s the kind that says, “You must pay, or else.” Boy, that girl: she got to go! She comes in most days with $80 or $90 in change and throws it at me. I say, “I’m not dealing with that. You got to go!” If I open the door, I always look and think, “How much will they smell?” Then sometimes, “Oh no no, we’re closed.” But that’s what Giuliani did, eliminate all that. And all the mafia sanitation. At every red light, there used to be bums with rags, waiting to clean your windshield. And panhandling, on the street and in the subway. A lot of cleaning up. Did that change the neighborhood? Oh yeah. I hope he becomes President. He’s running - he can be a great President. So the change was for the better? Oh yeah. I love Rudy. I am lucky to be here. I told my landlord, just don’t throw me out, I’ll pay out anythign you want - I told the old lady before she died. She said, “This is the East Village, this is Avenue A. You and I don’t belong here.” I said, “Charge me anything you want, I’ll pay.” I started here for $60 a month. Then up to $80, $150, and then it went up to $800. Then she said, “You don’t belong here.” I said, “Charge me anything you want. I’ll pay.” So she jumped from $800 to $2,400. Now I’m paying $4,000. Plus my water bills, electric. Electricity in the summer, $2,500. Winter, $1,800. Does the money worry you? The money I borrow. I have 18, 19 credit cards. I borrow, I pay the bills. Then in summer, I make money, I pay the bills. So it’s been a long time since you’ve been making a lot from the store? Money is not my - Ah, it’s good to have money but I am concerned with my health and my peace of mind. Money comes and goes. I’ll do this as long as I can get out of bed. When I can’t, I’ll buy a gun and bang! [laughs] No, I don’t know really, what I’ll do when I cannot get out of the bed. What’s your favorite thing on the menu? Anything I make has to be the best. Otherwise I tell the customer, “We don’t have it.” I buy the best. Hot dogs: Boar’s Heads. I say, make the best and biggest. The customer will keep on coming back. If you screw somebody once, give them 15 fries for $8, you’re never gonna see them again. You get written up in newspapers from time to time. Do you read the articles? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I used to save them and I had a whole stack upstairs, but a leak ruined them all. A reporter, Curtis Sliwa, he’s on ABC radio at 5am, he used to come in every morning and buy 20 papers and coffees, then go in a cab. He used to talk bad on the radio about the mafia, John Gotti’s people. So one day they catch him here and beat the shit out of him; broke his arms, his leg. But he didn’t stop. Then another day, he got into a cab after he got his papers, but it was a stolen cab - the mafia was driving it. He says, “take me to ABC” but they took him to the East River. They shot him 5 times and I think he climbed out the window. The next morning, all the news cameras came here and said, “What did you see?” I said, “He comes in everyday and buys coffee. I just saw him get in the cab.” What are your favorite places in the neighborhood? I like Veselka. Everytime I go in there, they don’t charge me, because my next door neighbor owns the building. Oh, you should go everyday. Well, they give me free food so I don’t go everyday. But if I run out of syrup or straws, I go over there and they give some to me. But I’m getting old, I don’t need to eat much anymore.