Quite by accident, I stumbled upon the clip below and was instantly taken back a decade.
The “Peeler Man” was this compelling little character that used to hold court on the northwesterly area of Union Square. This distinguished salesman from the mother country (actual name: Joe Ades) used to sit and regale passers-by with myriad benefits of his revolutionary culinary tool, demonstrating its capabilties on any number of carrots and potatoes. My wife and I used to worry about him. An elderly gentleman like himself should surely not be out on the pavement (literally) plying his wares this way. To the contrary, though, he clearly got a great deal of joy out of it, and probably made a few bucks along the way. I seem to remember my then-future (and now ex) job, The TODAY Show doing a profile about him before he passed, and he was an unrepentantaly happy soul.
As far as his peelers go, we bought one – and we still use it this many years later.
Sadly, Mr. Ades passed away in 2009. But here he was in action…
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