The Two Minutes Between Stops
How NYC’s candy sellers reflect the resilience of migrants in a city that moves too fast to see them.
PHOTO BY Kate Serrano & Benjamin Uribe
EDITED BY Christopher Buchanan
The subway’s hum has a lullaby quality to it, one that never put me to sleep so much as it reminded me that I was awake—awake in a city that rattles and breathes without apology. As the train's car itself rattles forward, I notice how each jerk and sway orchestrates a grimy ballet of strangers pressed shoulder-to-shoulder. Overhead, fluorescent lights flicker, revealing a collage of tired faces and chipped paint. Here, it often smells like old newspapers and body heat. Such a nice scent, right? But on occasion, something faintly sweet drifts in from the next car. In this cramped theater, no one seems willing to acknowledge anyone else. And yet, just as the train settles into its rhythm, a voice attempts to pierce the indifference: “¿Dulces o chocolates?”
No one looks up. Most of us have learned to focus on a phone screen or an imaginary spot on the floor. The figure, just another candy seller, floats through the crowd, offering small packets of sweetness in exchange for a sliver of attention. They’re part of a larger story that we prefer not to see. A city grappling with an ever-growing number of new arrivals, migrants who have made their way here out of necessity, spilling into crowded shelters and overtaxed systems.
As someone born and raised in New York City, I can’t pretend I don’t notice. This city’s beating heart has always been powered by newcomers. The candy seller’s presence, like so many others, only makes that truth harder to ignore.
Growing up in the Bronx meant never really having the option of ignorance. The hustle, whatever shape it took, was always on display, as ordinary as corner bodegas or abuelos arguing and slamming on tables over dominoes. By the time I could read a subway map, I’d already learned to tune out the countless small dramas unfolding around me. I was just another person with headphones on, bobbing my head to music and trying not to make eye contact with anyone who asked for something I couldn’t give.
But these candy sellers were different, even if I didn’t admit it at the time. There was a rhythm to their movements that matched the city’s dancing pulse. The way they slip into the train car just as the doors slide shut, timing each step and each spoken line to the clacking of the tracks beneath our feet. Truthfully, back then, I thought of them as ghosts. Familiar apparitions fading in and out of my daily commute, never truly there except when I dared to notice.
Now, I see their presence as a reminder of how thin the line is between seen and unseen. Their quiet hustle asks me to reckon with the gaps in my own vision. Did I ever really fail to see them, or did I choose not to look?
The Two-Minute Hustle: A Subway Microcosm
In the two minutes (on average) it takes an express train to shoot from one station to the next, a whole narrative unfurls and then disappears. Two minutes is nothing, just a blip in our day. There's barely enough time to scroll past a few more posts on your feed or to even adjust the strap of your bag digging into your shoulder before the train glides into the next station. But for the candy seller, it’s everything. It’s the chance to step in, carve out a bit of space, and make a sale before the doors slide open again.
In these two minutes, I notice the details most people ignore: The careful pivot of the seller’s feet as he navigates around a backpack on the floor, the subtle nod he gives to an older woman who doesn’t raise her eyes, the way his voice carries over the screeching wheels, never once breaking with the train’s relentless beat. This is a performance of sorts – one that demands precision. He must move fast but appear calm, present his goods but never push too hard, remain visible and yet, strangely invisible.
Around him, passengers remain locked in their routines. A teenager taps at his phone’s screen like it’s a lifeline. A suited man in the corner lifts his gaze just enough to register the seller’s presence, then returns to his newspaper. Someone shifts uncomfortably, maybe feeling guilty for not engaging. The candy seller’s path is a diagonal line slicing through a crowd that pretends not to notice him.
And by the time the train begins to slow, he’s gone. Slipping through the doors like a ghost, he moves on to another car, another two-minute window. Everything that happened here, his silent plea for recognition and the passengers’ studied indifference, will fade, blending back into city anonymity as if it never happened at all.
The Sellers
I think it's impossible to say exactly who these candy sellers are, because talking to them isn’t too much of an option. Not because they’re cold or dismissive, but because opening up could mean risking a lot. Most of them wouldn’t answer anyway. They’ve got good reason. Trust is scarce when you’re navigating a city that can flip on you without warning. Many are migrants, newly arrived in a place that claims to welcome everyone but rarely makes good on that promise.
At some point, I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be in their shoes, carrying a tray of candy through crowded trains, or having to try and sell all day while bearing the weight of a child on their backs. I think about language barriers, the constant worry that an authority figure might be one car away. I think about what it means to stand in front of people who refuse to meet your eye, selling sweets you probably can’t afford to indulge in yourself. No stable paycheck, no sick days, just the restless loop of moving through cars and hoping someone will hand over a dollar.
We’re living in a time where the city’s social services are stretched thin. Shelters are full, and the roads leading to some semblance of stability are lined with red tape. Migrants who step into this world often find themselves hustling in the shadows because being seen might mean being targeted. It’s not just fear of immigration crackdowns. It’s fear of ridicule, of exposure or of having your story distorted and hung out for others to judge.
I also want to point out that I don't know all the details. Without willing interviewees (understandably), I’m left with impressions and the weight of everything I’ve learned growing up here. But there’s a truth hovering around these silent figures, their presence is a quiet act of defiance, a way to carve out a place in a city that loves to proclaim it’s built on dreams, while forgetting how fragile those dreams can be. They’re staking their claim in the smallest increments of time, hustling between stops that offer no promise except the chance to try again.
So I watch, and I wonder. I try to imagine what life looks like outside those subway doors. And in the silence between us, I realize that, without words, they’re telling a story we all need to hear.
The NYC Identity
New York City has always been a place where those willing to hustle find their own rhythm. It’s easy to think of Broadway performers, street musicians and even hot dog vendors as “classic” parts of the landscape, but candy sellers are just as integral. They move through the subway with the same determination, a small entrepreneurial spark bright enough to cut through the indifference surrounding them.
In a city that loves to boast about its diversity and opportunity, the candy sellers’ quiet struggle hints at a more complicated truth. We celebrate the skyline and the glitz, but beneath that shine, countless people are fighting to make themselves visible. They aren’t asking for handouts; they’re crafting their own survival in tight spaces and brief moments.
This hustle belongs to them, too. It’s stitched into the dense fabric of the city. The grand myth of New York might center on chasing dreams, but these sellers remind us that simply getting by can be its own kind of victory. Every time they board a car and move through the crowd, they’re asserting a right to exist in a place that promises so much yet overlooks so many. They are, undeniably, part of this city’s story.
Meeting the Eyes We Avoid
It’s easy to keep ignoring them. We’ve all got somewhere to be or something else on our minds. But maybe what we need is to slow down, just for a moment. Not long enough to disrupt our day, but enough to acknowledge another human being. I’m not saying you have to buy candy every time, or even speak up. Sometimes it’s enough to really see someone, to let them know they aren’t invisible.
My home borough has taught me many lessons, and I learned early that this city doesn’t slow down for anyone. It rewards those who move quickly and doesn’t bother to explain itself to the rest. But watching these candy sellers, I’m reminded that pausing, even in the smallest way, can shift something inside us. When I catch myself following their movements through the train, I’m unsettled by how often I’ve let them slip from my mind as soon as they exit.
This isn’t about heroics or grand gestures. It’s simply an invitation to notice what’s right in front of us. Because if the city’s promise means anything, it should mean that every life moving through its veins deserves at least a flicker of recognition.
A City’s Soul in Two Minutes
Eventually, the train pulls into the station, and everyone pours out, scattering into the city’s endless current. And just like that, they’re gone, replaced by another stranger who might enter a few minutes later, or perhaps never at all. But the memory lingers, caught in the hum of a thousand subway rides I’ve taken since childhood.
I think about all the times I didn’t look up, all the faces I can’t recall because I never bothered to study them. For every lost glance, there’s a person who passed through these cars, working the margins of a system too tangled to change overnight. But maybe change doesn’t always start with systems; maybe it starts with the smallest acts of noticing. The city may never slow down, but I can, and we should, decide not to rush through it blindly.
It’s painless for us to say these candy sellers aren't important—that they’re just a byproduct of urban life. But I can’t bring myself to believe that. Their presence, however brief, cuts through the noise and reminds me that beyond my own worries lie countless human stories. And if we can acknowledge even one of them, just once, maybe that’s enough to keep our shared humanity from slipping entirely out of view.