Jean Rice (Interview 3)

Lewis: [00:00:04] Alright, good evening. This is Lynn Lewis, and I am interviewing Jean Rice. It's October 20th, a Friday, early evening—always a pleasure to be with Jean. How are you feeling tonight Jean?
 
Rice: [00:00:22] Oh, I'm just recuperating from my annual Dancegiving that we had. [Laughter] And I saw you had a good time. [Smiles] I enjoyed watching you dance, as usual.
 
Lewis: I didn't see you dance.
 
Rice: I enjoy watching you
 
Lewis: [Laughs]
 
Rice: and our allies dance. [Laughs]
 
Lewis: [00:00:36] Alright, well, next—one day. So, Jean, we've talked about some of your family background. And we've talked about how you came to Picture the Homeless and of course being the longest member of Picture the Homeless—whose been there since 2001… You know, you've played a big role in every aspect of the organization. What I want to ask you tonight to talk about— as one of the early members of the Civil Rights Committee, what were your experiences like when you were homeless in terms of the police and selective enforcement?
 
Rice: [00:01:24] One of the first things that came to my mind was how people that are housed—housed people—take certain things for granted, that they do every day… That—it's almost like shock therapy… When you become homeless and then your urination becomes [smiles] criminalized. [Laughs] You're coming and just sitting down in your apartment after a hard day's work, drinking a beer! That behavior is criminalized if you're unhoused! So, that… I'm homeless for the first time, street homeless, and I'm doing the things that I normally do. I pick up cans all day, after the end of the day, I get my six pack and I sit on top of my cart with my cans in it until the next morning, and I'm drinking my beer.
 
Rice: [00:02:34] And here comes John Q. Law and says, [imitates voice] “What are you doing? You can't drink that beer, out here!” And I'm going, huh? “I'm writing you a ticket... Matter of fact, give me your… “ And then, if I've got a previous summons for jumping a turnstile to go downtown to pick up cans, and I didn't have no money—then the cop finds out I got a warrant, then I'm put through the system.
 
Rice: [00:03:10] I remember one time, I camped out—I think on Third Avenue by the Associated, or Second Avenue—pulled up there like two o’clock in the morning. I wanted to be the first one to Associated, across the street. And Lynn can share this experience with me because around seven thirty or eight o'clock that morning, I didn't know that I was parked right near a school bus stop.
 
Rice: [00:03:45] Some of these moms that were walking their kids to get on the bus, saw me and my cart—and a homeless guy was perceived as a potential pedophile or something… They called a cop! Cops ran me through, and I had an Open Container warrant.
 
Rice: [00:04:06] They took my cans, put them over by the Associated across the street… Whoever wanted them could have them, with all my belongings and everything. And ran me through the… Next thing I knew, I was in Central Booking.
 
Rice: [00:04:21] And all I had did, was pick up all my—my cans all that night… And I wanted to be the first one in, the next morning, to get my cans redeemed. So, I'm across the street from the Associated, I got on top of my mail cart and went to sleep. And when daylight came, I later found out that I was sleeping right near a school bus stop and some of the parents had got concerned that a homeless person—who might be a pedophile—was sleeping so close to where their kids got—boarded the bus, they called the police. And the next thing I knew, I was sitting at 100 Center Street in Central Booking, wondering what the hell I did to be treated like a criminal!
 
Lewis: [00:05:15] How long did you stay in Central Booking? What's that process like?
 
Rice: [00:05:20] I came out the next day.
 
Lewis: Mm-hmmm.
 
Rice: I came out the next day… But! I lost my financial records from the Board, my knapsack with all that in it, my ID. All that was in my cart on the bottom, with a partition to keep it from getting the liquid from the cans and the cans were on top! Well, the cops just took my cart! And when they put me in the van, they put my cart right in front of Associated and said, “Well, you made somebody a good day.” I didn't even have no choice about who to give it to!
 
Lewis: [00:06:02] What are the police supposed to do with people's property when they get arrested?
 
Rice: [00:06:09] Well, they—from my understanding they’re supposed to—number one, inventory it, in duplicate. They're supposed to keep a copy, and they're supposed to give you a copy. Again, this goes into transparency. While I was street homeless, I know a lot of elderly homeless people that don't believe in banks, and they used to keep their money in their knapsack, or in their socks and whenever…
 
Rice: [00:06:44] I'm not saying all police, but you know, I've been in New York City since 1944 so you can't tell me that a dishonest or rogue cop, is out of the ordinary. Matter of fact, it's a matter of record, that most elderly police officers who retire, when their relatives, their sons, and nephews, follow and join the NYPD, they almost always advise them never to be a vice cop and never to be a narco cop, because that's the route to being a rogue cop.  
 
Lewis: [00:07:31] So, when you get put through the system, can you tell people what happens, and to get out, what do you need to do to get out?
 
Rice: [00:07:40] Well, the first thing that's wrong—I mean a blatant travesty of justice, is when they give [laughs] the poorest people the highest bail. And the wealthy get, “Come back on your own recognizance because you're an upstanding New York citizen and you're not—you’re not a threat to flee.” To me that's justice turned upside down.
 
Rice: [00:08:09] I mean… I guess being homeless gave me the opportunity to see how the criminal justice system is subverted. I mean, being an Afro American, I had an idea about the subversion of the criminal justice system. The idea came from so many male, Afro Americans—capital punishment, lynching—without due process of law.
 
Rice: [00:08:50] So many Caucasian plantation owners violate my Black sister or my Black mother. But they don't have to pay with their life. So, the society was sending me a message that my mother wasn't as good as their mother. So, never mind that all people are created equal. Never mind that the Fourteenth Amendment after the Constitution—I mean, after the civil war and the Reconstruction Amendments… As long as practices like that continue, you continue to send a message to the citizenry that there is no equality before the law.
 
Rice: [00:09:39] So I learned that when I was going to John Jay—and then I saw it firsthand when I became street homeless, and even before I joined Picture the Homeless, as I alluded to—I got acquainted with Picture the Homeless when Bloomberg was the Mayor. But prior to that, Bloomberg is not the one that instituted Quality of Life, Giuliani did. And I was kind of surprised that a person like Rudolph Giuliani, who had been a federal prosecutor, would have such a little regard for the Constitution and due process of law.  
 
Rice: [00:10:27] When he—interacted with the people from the Manhattan Institute, and then they showed him how to politicize Law and Order… Law and Order is just code word for keep the niggers in check. So, when he joined that, instead of telling the Manhattan Institute that they should abide by the Fourteenth Amendment, he sold his soul out. He became part of a group that's been involved in eugenics.
 
Rice: [00:11:06] So, I have no more respect for him. And this is even before I found out that his first wife was his cousin. [Laughter] And even before I found out that he paraded his mistress around his official workplace, disrespecting New York City, his family, and even before I found out that about him! Giuliani's lack of integrity is only superseded by Trump's ignorance! I don't know how New York City could produce… How could you live in New York City [smiles] and come out with a mentality like that? Both of these guys amaze me!
 
Lewis: [00:11:45] So, when you get put through the system, you spend the night in 100 Centre Street,
 
Rice: Yeah.
 
Lewis: right? Down in the tombs…
 
Rice: If you're in a shelter, you lose your bed.
 
Lewis: Okay, and what are the other things that might happen?
 
Rice: [00:12:02] Well, like I told you, I lost my belongings. And then—then they tell you, after they, the police, throw away all your personal stuff. Then you go back to the precinct, and they say, “Well we only kept them here for a matter of hours. Your personal stuff went to Long Island City.”
 
Lewis: What's in Long Island City?
 
Rice: That's where the local—it’s the large, storage place for when personal property is taken from someone at the Precinct level, and if they don't make bail, or get out right away, the Precinct doesn't have adequate space to hold that indefinitely. So, it's tagged, logged, and sent to Long Island City.
 
Lewis: [00:12:52] And so, you go before the judge, and what would a typical charge be that you would get put through the system for?
 
Rice: [Pauses] Really—the amazing thing is they're not even crimes.
 
Lewis: Mm-hmmm.
 
Rice: They're what we call offenses.
 
Lewis: Okay.
 
Rice: Or what we at Picture the Homeless call antisocial behavior.
 
Lewis: All right.
 
Rice: But this is antisocial behavior that housed, and homeless alike, do! But seems that disproportionately un-housed people get criminalized while housed people, a lot of times, are just reprimanded, “Don't do that no more, now get the hell out of here and go home.”
 
Lewis: [00:13:42] And what are some of the charges that you would be charged for, and put through the system for?
 
Rice: Well, during my time on the street, a lot of times I didn't manage my—my budget right. So next day going to work, I would have to jump the turnstile, or what they call, “evade paying a fare—fare evasion”. That was probably the third, the… If I would say ABC, that would be my C violation. And my B violation would be urination in public, and my A violation would be drinking from an open alcohol container, in public.
 
Lewis: So, for those things, you would be put through the system.
 
Rice: Yes.
 
Lewis: [00:14:38] And, tell me a story about when you got put through the system—what it was like.
 
Rice: [00:14:43] So, at the Precinct level, the police have discretion. They can give you a desk warrant, which just is a “promise to appear”. A lot of… I know in Harlem, a lot of people that own the brownstones, if they go to Saint Nicolas park and drink a little bit too much, they get taken to the Precinct. Once they verify that they own that brownstone around the corner, they get the desk ticket and they go home, and they're told, “Next time don't drink so much in the park.”  
 
Rice: [00:15:33] But if you're homeless, then you don't get that desk ticket. And what they do is, they—if you have a cart with all your belongings in it, they're not going to take all of that into the Precinct. So, they leave your cart on the street—for whoever. And then, they take you to the Precinct and try—fingerprint you…  
 
Rice: [00:16:03] Although, if it's less than a crime you don't have to be fingerprinted, but most people don't know that. They fingerprint you, take your mug shot and then they check you on a local level. And if you've got a record, when your record comes back, if it shows that you travel a lot, if you got an arrest in Connecticut, and you got an arrest in New York and you got an arrest in Fayetteville, North Carolina—then they send a copy of your rap sheet to the FBI, as national. And you're in this holding pen, and they're going over you with a fine-tooth comb, and going—that's behind the scenes.
 
Rice: [00:16:47] But meanwhile… Even if you've got money in your pocket, you are put on a semi-starvation diet until you get to court, to the judge. It usually consists of sour milk, cold coffee, stale baloney with purple—it's so stale it's got this—turning purple... That's what you eat. The food is given to you by other inmates, and you don't know whether they wash their hands—or whatever. I mean, it's barbaric. Most of the times, if I'm in the system, I don't eat.
 
Rice: [00:17:33] Then—you are… Like I said, classified—and if you have no outstanding serious crimes, like armed robbery or rape or something like that, they expedite you—but usually, that takes a minimum of twenty-four hours. So, when they say, “putting you through the system”, you can rest assured that you are going to be absent from the society at large for a minimum of twenty-four hours.  
 
Rice: [00:18:07] Then another thing… They always refer to your [laughs] arrest record… And I always thought that it would be more just if they referred to your conviction record. Because, if you are Afro, I'm not gonna say Afro male, because lately Afro females is getting locked—females of color are getting locked up just as much as the males of color.
 
Rice: [00:18:40] But, if you live in what the status quo is already deemed a “high crime area”, if you live there, or you work in that area, and that's where they deploy the police… And then, as they come out with this composite, or profile—person of color, a certain age, dressed a certain way—if you fit that, then the chances of you being accosted, are more than the average person.
 
Rice: [00:19:26] And, if you—on your way home from work after you pick up your cans, if you buy your little nickel bag of weed and six pack of beer and look for a secluded place if you're street homeless, to do that, you get caught in the mix—you're criminalized! Whereas—it's been proven, survey after survey, that the white kids in suburbia smoke more weed than we do! But less of them are criminalized.  
 
Rice: [00:19:57] So, equal justice before the law is still a myth. Probably in my lifetime I will never see judicial equality. But what I can do is—like we at Picture the Homeless always say, “We can make a difference.” We can diminish the impact. We can educate the public about how America can never be great when it doesn't live up to its national credo.
 
Rice: [00:20:31] I don't know what Trump—he's going to make America great again? What—when we go back to Jim Crow?! What—if he makes Sessions, who he made the Attorney General, when we adapt his police policies? I mean, I don't know why some reporter didn't say, “Well, Mr. Trump, in your perspective when was America great? We might find out that he thought America was great when the first police forces were being used to apprehend fugitive slaves! That, he might think America was great, when him and his dad adhered to restrictive renting covenants—where they signed agreements not to rent to people of color! This might be our Presidents idea of what made America great. I'm waiting for some astute reporter to ask President Trump what—to him—made America great, and when.
 
Lewis: [00:21:38] Thank you Jean. So, let's shift a little bit—because you brought up public education. And so—is there something that stands out in your mind that you did with Picture the Homeless that was public education related around selective enforcement and policing?
 
Rice: [00:22:03] Yeah… One of the main [pauses] impediments that Picture the Homeless had when we tried to secure public space for our unhoused sisters and brothers who were New York City citizens, was this broken windows policing concept. I mean, and—even well-intentioned so-called liberal allies, they seem to think that broken windows operated in the common good, and it was okay.
 
Rice: [00:22:49] Picture the Homeless, along with other—a few other allies, were quick to point out that, you know what? You always start—when you start a police state—you always start imposing these draconian policies against the people at the bottom of the socio-economic strata. I mean the Jews in Germany is a good example! First, the vagabonds and the hobos, then the intellectuals, and so on, and so on. And then, as the poem goes, when they came for me there was nobody to help me.
 
Rice: [00:23:36] So, in America, and in New York City in particular—the homeless! People that fell between the cracks… I mean, who cares if their civil liberties are transgressed upon? Who cares if we put this draconian measure before the City Council? As long as it's directed at these particular people.
 
Rice: [00:24:15] And I'm going… How different is that—when in the Godfather, they was all opposed to heroin—doing drug business, getting involved in the narcotics trade. But the minute they said, “What if we could contain it, in the black and Hispanic neighborhood? The niggers and the spics have no soul anyway.” Then the whole five families say, “Okay! Let's do it!” Well, you know, it's the same concept. [Laughs]
 
Rice: [00:24:50] [Imitates general public] “As long as you take this draconian law, and you only do it to homeless New Yorkers, and I don't see the impact and I don't have to deal with the impact, and you keep them from blocking up my sidewalk, and when I come from work I don't have to see them homeless, dirty people. I don't have to smell them. As long as you do that, I don't care how you do it! Take away all their civil liberties. I don't care! As long as it's them and not me.”
 
Rice: [00:25:25] But, I guess these people spend too much time going to and from work, to read World history and American history because no elite group, no power mongering dictator stops with one group. It always starts with the group that's least popular. He always uses sensationalism and propaganda and the media to demonize these people first. Demonization comes before criminalization. But after demonization and criminalization, comes institutionalization. And then the institution is enlarged and enlarged, and you look around and you go—you go to your church, and you go, “What happened to brother so-and-so?” “Oh, he became a person of interest because he didn't agree with that. They got him on lock down.”
 
Rice: [00:26:39] Then—but… It's incumbent, and I guess one of the reasons why my sister Lynn and I are sitting here on this Friday evening, broaching this subject—because nothing protects our liberty more than an aroused citizenry. I hope, that when my sister Lynn finishes this project and presents it to Columbia University, I hope it inspires a lot of faculty and students to become aroused, involved, and to demand, to demand accountability and transparency at every level of policy making that impacts us. And as a student of public administration, wherever your tax dollars go, you got a right to know!
 
Lewis: [00:27:40] What are some of the ways that you have educated the public about broken windows policing? What have you done, and I know you've done a lot!
 
Rice: [00:27:52] Well… Sometimes, my organization and I have openly confronted the policy. For instance, there was a time at Grand Central, when—if you were tired and you sat down and you fell asleep—you were either thrown out, asked for ID, and put through the system… While right next to you, some guy or girl, who had just put in ten hours at the office and waiting for a train to go back to upstate New York or Connecticut, would fall asleep and a cop would stand there and protect them… And matter of fact, tap them gently and say, “Madam or sir, don’t—you don't want to miss your train.”
 
Rice: [00:28:53] Whereas, with the homeless person—who appeared to be homeless, he was awakened by a nightstick—banging so close to him, it's almost deafening to his ear, or a dog from the canine corps growling at him in a threatening manner. So, Picture the Homeless went, on two occasions, with enough bodies—we'd just occupy all the seats. And we had some members that were dressed like the profile of a homeless person, but we had other people deployed up on the balcony level with our banner.
 
Rice: [00:29:39] And, as a result of that—and press was there—and as a result of that, as long as the homeless, or the person that appeared to be homeless, is sitting upright, and not sprawled out, they—now, now, October 2017… That practice is not being implemented. You're not being put out in the cold, because you fell asleep in Grand Central, and you appear to be undomiciled. That's one of the things.
 
Rice: [00:30:22] But… Public space in general—I mean, you would think that the right to solicit the public… If you are destitute, down on your luck—a New York City pauper—you should have more right based on your need to ask the public, in a orderly way, if they want to help you. Then, affluent members of the Salvation Army, [laughs] can come out and ring a bell! They're doing the same thing! There's no difference between what the United Way does, and what the Salvation Army does. It's all public solicitation. The panhandle is down in Texas somewhere.
 
Rice: [00:31:31] So when you try to tell a homeless person, who wants public assistance, who’s soliciting the public—that they’re panhandling…  I get a lot of problems… I don't know what the hell the police are talking about. I know that I learned at Picture the Homeless, as long as I'm not near a ATM machine, as long as I'm not impeding traffic, as long as I'm not being vocally abusive… I have a right to ask the public for help.
 
Rice: [00:32:07] So, when I'm not busy with my organization, Picture the Homeless, when Jean Rice is not picking up recyclable containers, Jean Rice is on 42nd  Street and Vanderbilt Avenue with a sign that says, “Unemployed machinist. Operate lathe mill and reads a micrometer. Needs work.” Now since all these manufacturing jobs for machinists have been outsourced where there's no union, where there is no pension fund and no healthcare—cheap labor… There are no jobs like that left anymore!
 
Rice: [00:32:49] So, the people passing by on Vanderbilt and forty-second, who—most of them on their board voted for the jobs to be outsourced, they feel a little tug in their heart, and they drop something in the tin cup. Jean Rice is not a panhandler. But I'm proud to be a public solicitor and my right to do that is protected by the First Amendment of our United States Constitution!
 
Lewis: [00:33:19] Nice. One of the ways that I've seen you be really, effective educating the public, has been in giving speaking engagements but also teaching other members of Picture the Homeless how to prepare—to speak. And so, when you get asked to do a speaking engagement, tell me how you prepare for that? What do you do?
 
Rice: [00:33:48] Well I’m going to start with one of the most difficult ones…[Smiles] If you remember, Lynn, it was late in your career as our director—that I came to you and I said, through another, used to be, member of Picture the Homeless, I had this opportunity to speak on a forum about broken windows policing. And as my director, I thought, I wanted to know—should I go as an individual? Or should I go as a member of Picture the Homeless?
 
Rice: [00:34:24] So you took out some of your time and you checked out and you found out that a lot of people that we knew were going to be involved in this… And, but you left it up to me to decide whether I wanted to go as an individual, or as a member of Picture the Homeless. And I didn't know that that forum was going to be—jet streamed, or stream-lined… It went all over the nation. And in addition to the people that were present… I think that was at the Graduate school, I think that's where they held it—on Fifth Avenue, right across from the Empire State Building.
 
Lewis: CUNY Graduate Center?
 
Rice: [00:35:07] Yes, and there was another brother, who through the technology—he was in Oakland California! [Laughs] He was on the panel too. And that's where I met this distinguished professor from Columbia, Professor Harcourt. Who had already shared my belief, that broken windows policing was a hoax, a bill of goods being sold to the public.
 
Rice: [00:35:48] So his book, Illusion of Order… And he was on that panel with me! [Smiles] And when I saw his bio, I said to myself, well I think my group, and my director and I, had gotten into water over my damn head this time. [Smiles] But! The place was packed too.
 
Rice: [00:36:18] And, back to preparation! I did research, background research. I used the facilities at Picture the Homeless—our computers, our ability to go to Google. I found out the origins of broken windows policing—Atlantic Monthly magazine, [laughs] again, my group at Picture the Homeless helped me. I didn't prepare by myself. So, I was able to get a copy of that Atlantic magazine article. I was able to determine who the co-authors were. Then I did a background check on both of them—part of my preparation.
 
Rice: [00:37:17] And then… Then, I read that Atlantic Monthly magazine article almost continuously... I'd wake up and read it in the morning. I read it so much until part of it was retained in my subconscious. The part that I remembered most vividly, was that—in the article Kelling and them admit that there will be civil liberty abuses! But… That they could convince the public that the civil liberty abuses were necessary to make the community at large safe! That's the premise of broken windows policing.
 
Rice: [00:38:16] You don't have to read through all the pages in the magazine article… If you want to get to the bottom line—Kelling, the Manhattan Institute, Rudolph Giuliani… All the advocates of broken windows policing are asking the community at large to accept the unconstitutional treatment of a small segment, so that the rest of the community can be safe.
 
Rice: [00:38:59] It saddens me to see how effective that is. Charlie Rangel has bought into that. The silent majority that backed the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Afro American bourgeois that E. Franklin Frazier talked about, that Franz Fanon talked about! They're more detrimental than Heather MacDonald and them!
 
Rice: [00:39:23] So, I mean… So, I was really, really gratified and honored, that after that panel on broken windows Professor Harcourt sent me a copy of his book and took the time to inscribe it and told me, layman Jean Rice, Picture the Homeless board member, [laughs] that I inspire him! That book—that's motivation. Money can't buy… That book is priceless to me, and to my organization. And then later on, I meet people that were in the audience, or people that had watched it, and they was telling me how compelling that my presentation was.
 
Rice: [00:40:28] And in preparing—to close… I'ma stop where we started at. In preparing, I always try not to be redundant and repetitious. So, I always want to know who's going to be on the panel with me. I want to know what order is my speaking. Because, if I'm first, I can break the ice. If I'm last, then I can sum up, and issue a challenge for next steps—solutions. So, a lot depends on, a lot of your presentation to me, depends on what the topic is, who the audience is, and who are your fellow—sisters and brothers on the panel. What key points do they hit? What did they miss that's key, from your perspective, representing undomiciled citizens.
 
Rice: [00:41:44] For instance—stereotyping… Now, someone might be the victim of stereotyping because of their gender preference, their sexual orientation. Someone else might be stereotyped because they appear to be Asian or Arabic. I might be stereotyped because I appear to be undomiciled. Still, in our America, in our New York City, selective enforcement, profiling—is wrong. Judge Harlan said, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, “Our Constitution knows no caste, no color line. We are all equal before the law.” So, if you don't respect Jean Rice… If you don't respect Picture the Homeless... You need to respect the great dissenter Justice Harlan and remember [laughs] that we're all equal before the law.
 
Lewis: [00:42:48] Thank you Jean. How many books have you read would you say, about broken windows policing?
 
Rice: [00:42:59] [Pause] About… Half a dozen books. I don't know how many newspaper articles. Every time I see broken windows, I cut it out. If it's in the paper, a pamphlet—but I study broken windows policing. What really appalls me is that if broken windows policing was such a positive thing, why did it take the Manhattan Institute to sell it to Rudolph Giuliani? Why—the first time he ran, broken windows policing wasn't part of his platform. Why did the loser choose to politicize broken windows policing through a group who has been affiliated with Nazi Germany, with the study of eugenics... He came in through the back door. To me, Giuliani should have been disbarred.
 
Rice: [00:44:25] When we got Black attorneys, who have been sanctioned and disbarred by the Bar Association of New York City, and they got other people in the legal profession that had violated the canon of judicial ethics more vehemently than these people—and the bar don't never step into that. In Housing Court, when housing judges are blatantly on the landlords side—no objectivity! Where is the bar association? This bar association has failed to uphold the canon of judicial ethics in regard to ensuring impartiality and objectivity.
 
Lewis: [00:45:20] Jean, we're going—we’re going to wrap up. [Laughter] And so… When you're out there, soliciting the public—and I know you've told me many stories, not just me, but you've told many stories of encounters with the police. What have they said to you and what have you said to them... Tell me a story about when you successfully stood up for your own rights, as somebody who was soliciting the public.
 
Rice: [00:45:57] Well I'm going to try to make it brief, because this is Friday night. But, I have to make a point. It hasn't been like a one-shot deal. At first the police approached me, when I was sleeping out in front of Grand Central Terminal, every night. They approached me like they approached any other homeless person, “Get the hell out of here, or go through the system!”
 
Rice: [00:46:21] But, as I evolved, as I became a member of Picture the Homeless, and as Picture the Homeless evolved and gained status—becoming part of Communities United for Police Reform, for instance. Cops—they do their research too! So… And then when my organization came on two occasions with me, held a press conference, “This is where I used to sleep.” So now, they don't treat me the same way. Now, they don't call me panhandler no more. They call me Picture the Homeless. [Smiles] That's my name down at Grand Central.
 
Rice: [00:47:06] “Hey, Picture the Homeless—see this guy here? I'm giving him a warning this time. I want you to be my witness. I want you to take five minutes of your time, and tell him why he shouldn't be holding the door in front of Grand Central, with his hand out… And here…” You know, they give me two dollars, five dollars, for five minutes of my time... But I would have did it for free!
 
Rice: [00:47:38] So I go, “Hey guy, there's a reason why I'm on this side of the street and the MTA's property starts on that side of the street. Now if you're going to do anything, you're supposed to know the limitations. If you're going to solicit the public—you can't be on MTA property. You can't be within five hundred feet of a ATM machine. You can't be verbally abusive, and you can't impede traffic! You see where I'm at over here? I'm not doing none of that. Matter of fact, when the passersby go, I let my sign do the talking. The only verbal interaction I have with the public, is when they contribute to my cause and I say, thank you very much, God bless you. That could never be construed as aggressive. So, I suggest that you go find you a corner like I found this one. [Laughs] Make sure that you're not violating any of those rules, and good luck!”
 
Rice: [00:48:52] And so… As you know Grand Central Terminal is a vast complex. So, I see some of the people that I've taught how to legally solicit the public. I see them around the perimeters of Grand Central, and they're in the midst now of building what's going to be designated “One Vanderbilt Place”. It's going to be the third or fourth tallest structure, in New York City. It's supposed to be completed within four years. I'm serving notice, “I already got that corner!”
 
Rice: [00:49:40] The boxer Mayweather just came last week and rented three floors of that, for his firm. So, I'm looking forward to four years from now getting enough help from the public to buy the winning lotto ticket. [Laughs] And when I win, I'm going to share my winnings with Pictured the Homeless… I'm going to take my sister Lynn Lewis to the Caribbean for a week [laughs] and the story will end happily ever after.
 
Lewis: Alright, thank you Jean.