If you live, work or spend any amount of time on University Place between 8th and 9th Streets, you’ve invariably heard him. “One penny, ma’am? No one should be hungry.”
Perched on a milk crate behind a large water-cooler bottle upended to accommodate donations, Mark sat for a succession of years outside of the neighborhood Gristede's, chanting his gentle-but-sonorous plea like the verses of an unending song. A large man with rounded shoulders and kind eyes, Mark would bless each and every person who stopped to put change or bills in his bottle, visibly thankful for every cent he received. A neighborhood fixture for at least a decade, Mark was unbothered by shifts in the weather, only retiring when the damp turned into prohibitive precipitation. Where he went when he wasn’t in that exact spot and how (or if) he distributed his ensuing funds remains a mystery not unlike what happened to Al (aka “Rocky”) who used to sit a block to the north. But he bothered no one. He accosted no one. He badgered no one. Every time I dropped money in Mark's bottle, he asked how my kids were — whom he’d seen grow from tiny tots into teenagers. Always a kind word and a gentle, lilting laugh ….and then back into his mantra. “One penny? No one should be hungry.”
This morning, I popped out to Gristede’s to buy some milk for my coffee, and in Mark’s place was a humble collection of flowers and some notes. Evidently, Mark passed away yesterday, although the reasons and specifics of his demise are unknown.
Rest easy, Mark, wherever you are.
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