An exceptional ethnography marked by clarity and candor, Sidewalk takes us into the socio-cultural environment of those who, though often seen as threatening or unseemly, work day after day on “the blocks” of one of New York’s most diverse neighborhoods. Sociologist Duneier, author of Slim’s Table, offers an accessible and compelling group portrait of several poor black men who make their livelihoods on the sidewalks of Greenwich Village selling secondhand goods, panhandling, and scavenging books and magazines.

Duneier spent five years with these individuals, and in Sidewalk he argues that, contrary to the opinion of various city officials, they actually contribute significantly to the order and well-being of the Village. An important study of the heart and mind of the street, Sidewalk also features an insightful afterword by longtime book vendor Hakim Hasan. This fascinating study reveals today’s urban life in all its complexity: its vitality, its conflicts about class and race, and its surprising opportunities for empathy among strangers.

Mitchell Duneier is an American sociologist currently Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and regular Visiting Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Duneier earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1992. His first book, "Slim's Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity" won the 1994 American Sociological Association's award for Distinguished Scholarly Publication. He is also the author of "Sidewalk" (1999), which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the C. Wright Mills Award.

Professor Duneier taught at the University of California-Santa Barbara, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the City University of New York (where he regularly teaches in a visiting capacity) before joining the Princeton faculty. He served on the original advisory board for National Public Radio's "This American Life.