After living in New York City for several years, I realized that the subway isn’t just a transportation system. It’s a stage where thousands of small and quiet stories unfold every day. One of the first things that surprised me when I arrived was the sight of women and young children walking from car to car selling candies. They carry a tray stacked with Skittles, M&M’s, and energy bars in front of them. Some had babies strapped to their backs, while others looked far too young to be navigating the gaps between subway cars.
At first, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. How could anyone possibly make money selling snacks this way? Although a candy bar that costs twenty-five cents at a wholesaler becomes two to three dollars in a subway car, the actual sales volume made me feel impossible as I rarely saw someone actually buy it. In addition, this job is dangerous. Moving between cars is prohibited by the MTA, yet these people are doing it so many times every day. As I stayed longer in the city, I gradually realized that without documents, childcare, or English proficiency, selling snacks became a survival strategy for them. In fact, one of the only ones they have. The profit margin for each sale is small, but longer hours can make up for it.
Another question bothered me for a long time: Who actually buys from them? If you do, you’re buying snacks without any real guarantee about their storage conditions, expiration dates, or where they came from. I never saw people who looked “well-off” make a purchase. Not the corporate workers with clean coats and AirPods. Not the young professionals scrolling through their phones. Almost never the tourists. As I began paying more attention, what I noticed surprised me.
The buyers were almost always people who looked like they were struggling too. People with work-worn hands and heavy boots. People in rough clothes with stains. Riders with faces that carried fatigue, not leisure. Many were Black or Latinx, often carrying cash bills. They paid with small bills, and they rarely asked for change. Occasionally they would wave their hand gently, signaling, “Keep it. It’s okay.”
In that moment, the transaction became something much more human. This wasn’t about buying a candy bar. This was one person who had very little quietly supporting another person who had even less. It reminded me of a Chinese saying, which translates into English means “I once stood in the pouring rain, so I want to open an umbrella for others to help.” And that’s exactly what I was witnessing.
It wasn’t charity in the traditional sense. It is a kind of empathy born from lived experience. People who know what it feels like to hustle for survival don’t overthink expiration dates or food safety or where those snacks came from. They grew up eating whatever was available. But more importantly, they seem to understand the daily grind behind the tray of snacks. They know the pressure of supporting a family without enough money and the fear of instability. They know what it feels like to be ignored, stepped over, rejected or treated as if your existence inconveniences everyone around you. And when you know that feeling in your bones, even one dollar becomes a gesture of solidarity.
I realized that many riders don’t participate in this micro-economy because they’ve never belonged to it. To them, buying food from a stranger on the train seems unsafe or unnecessary. But for those who have lived through unstable times, this tiny ecosystem of exchanging dollars on a subway car feels familiar. It’s the kind of quiet mutual support that fills in the cracks when systems fail.
Now when I watch these interactions, I feel something warm beneath the city’s noise. In a place as fast, harsh, and indifferent as New York, kindness sometimes appears not in big speeches or dramatic moments, but in the hidden corners of daily life. A construction worker buying a $2 Snickers from a teenage vendor is one of those moments. It’s small, easily overlooked, but deeply human. It’s a reminder that even among the people who struggle the most, there’s still compassion. Hardship doesn’t always harden people. Sometimes it makes them softer, more generous and more willing to help someone else survive just a little longer. In a city built on extremes, this small, quiet warmth might be one of the most meaningful things of all.
