a Hot Dog Cart, by David, in 22 seconds.
There are still a lot of hot dog carts on the streets of New York, but like phone booths, it seems nobody uses them. That’s not to say that street food is dead as an industry—hundreds of halal meat and upscale food trucks line the curbsides of Midtown streets—but that the competition for a bite on the go is a lot stiffer than it was twenty years ago. I, for one, have bought more bottles of water from hot dog carts than I have hot dogs (which some people swear by, but which I never crave).
Still, the hot dog cart is the proud flag of our street food city, and they offer a tiny bit of shade under their Sabrett-branded umbrellas to people who are really hungry. The Fastest Possible Hot Dog Cart has one of those umbrellas, of course, and a little cabinet for ketchup and change. At the end of the day, the stressed-out stick figure behind it will fire up a little electric motor and slowly roll the cart to a truck sitting five blocks away. Shoved into the back of the truck with nine other carts, it will head home to the West Side of Manhattan for the night. In the winter, it will emerge roasting chestnuts, which, like the hot dogs, almost nobody will eat; but the smell of their smoke, and of steamed hot dog buns, will sustain New Yorkers of all classes and origins through the winter, and keep us happy here.
Also, really super cold Gatorade, and other cool facts about hot dog carts.
