Pod Insights Snap Judgment The Hot Dog King of New York - Snap Classic About this episode This dog has everything: mustard, onions, a scrap with Giuliani, Vietnam Vets, and The Met. Everyone is coming for the Throne of the Hot Dog King of New York… Dan Rossi. And a camp for kids with dermatological issues reveals that some summer romances are more than skin deep.
STORIES
The Hot Dog King of New York
This dog has everything: mustard, onions, a scrap with Giuliani, Vietnam Vets, and The Met. Everyone is coming for the Throne of the Hot Dog King of New York… Dan Rossi.
This story contains strong language – sensitive listeners please be advised.
A huge thank you to Dan Rossi for sharing his story with Snap! There is so much that we were not able to share with you about Dan’s experience. To find out more check out his new memoir The New York Hot Dog King: From Rags to Riches to Less Than Rags https://www.amazon.com/New-York-Hot-Dog-King/dp/B0BFVRLY2Q. You can also follow Dan on social media https://linktr.ee/nyhotdogs.
Additional thanks to our friends at VICE https://www.vice.com/en, whose series MUNCHIES featured Dan https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/munchies-one-of-nycs-last-independent-hot-dog-vendors/5cb60fc1be40772c055767ff back in 2019 and was a big inspiration for this story.
Listen to the King’s tribute song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGkmb1DtCB0featured in this episode recorded by The Burner Band https://theburnerband.com/track/3199821/hot-dog-king.
Produced by Bo Walsh, original score by Clay Xavier, artwork by Teo Ducot.
Skin Deep
It’s days before the big dance at Camp Discovery — and there’s a problem. A few problems. But the kids at this camp are more used to problems than your average camper.
Thanks to everyone in this episode! Learn more about Camp Discovery at aad.org https://www.aad.org/.
Produced by Sarah Harris with help from Anna Sussman. Sound design by Renzo Gorrio.
Snap Classic - Season 15 – Episode 52
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:09 Glynn Washington? OK, so I'm gonna say something that is not particularly controversial in 99% of the country. Something simple, something innocuous, and here it is. See, from time to time, especially on a hot summer day, maybe even at a sporting event, I like to enjoy a hot dog. Not something I eat on a daily. It's an occasional treat that brings me great joy. And on my hot dog, I don't really like mustard. My two favorite toppings are ketchup and mayo. Along with some onions. And you might be thinking, Glenn, Glenn, I don't see the problem. I don't understand the controversy to which you allude.
1:54 Glynn Washington? Well, my friend, that means you are not either from New York or Chicago. Territory where a grown man is not allowed to mind his own business and put his condiments of choice on his hot dog that he paid his own money for without incurring the wrath of both vendor and passerby for the crime, the audacity, the temerity of preparing your own lunch the way you'd like to eat it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They will stop in their tracks, postpone important meetings in their busy schedules,
2:36 Glynn Washington? call in late for daycare pickup. Just to let you know that you, you are a barbarian of the highest order. I say to them, "Be gone. You don't scare me anymore. I won't be intimidated because I know something. I know something about the struggle. I know something about the pain." You think this tube of meat placed beside a safety roll happens by accident so you can act all high and mighty? It does not. I know what it's like to fight for your
3:15 Glynn Washington? hot dog. And after today's show, perhaps you will too.
3:25 Glynn Washington? Snap Probably Presents: The Hot Dog King of New York. My name is from Washington. And I will say, you grill hot dogs evenings, you don't boil them, but you do you. At least when you're listening to Snap Judgment.
3:56 Glynn Washington? We begin where they say there's eight million stories in the naked city right now. Snap Producer Bo Walsh is standing in front of 82nd Street and Fifth Avenue with Dan Rossi. And Dan, here's one of those stories to tell. And as I've alluded, there's no boiling water over here, Snap, it's not here. We've got your 100% grass-fed beef goes on the grill where it can sizzle. So I'm saying. Snap judgment.
4:35 Speaker 02 You know, I remember telling one of the guys, this is just a fancy warehouse. And the guy got all upset, you know? You have to be in order of place. You just have to be. It's just got everything in this damn place.
4:47 Speaker 03 I'm walking with Dan Rossi through the halls of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
4:52 Speaker 02 That's the way that people are going, this way.
4:56 Speaker 03 He stops to admire the 400 square foot skylight that hangs from the ceiling.
5:00 Speaker 02 This is all simple stuff. It's just glass, that's all it is.
5:03 Speaker 03 Dan helped build it over 40 years ago when he was a sheet metal worker.
5:07 Speaker 02 And I remember welding all the parts on it and how hard it was because if you know anything about welding, as soon as you make heat, the metal starts to bend. And it was so hard to keep this thing so that, you know, and I'm saying that's where it is. I'm looking, it was beautiful job. But you can't compare building that to some of this art. You can't do it. It's a different ballgame.
5:29 Speaker 03 Dan and I walk past the ancient tombs and medieval swords, out of the met and down the steps.
5:35 Speaker 02 Okay, we get out of here.
5:36 Speaker 03 Where there outside, surrounded by tourists and New Yorkers, all grabbing a bite, it stands. His hot dog cart.
5:48 Speaker 02 And then you come out and you see my carts, that's a pretty nice thing, you know?
5:54 Speaker 02 It hit you right in the face. Yep. It took me a long time to put ketchup on a hot dog. New York, you never heard of ketchup on a, never, ever. Only mustard, that's it.
6:04 Speaker 03 Dan's cart location sits in one of the most coveted vending spots in all of New York City.
6:09 Speaker 02 Which is blocked, there is. Look at who's better than me, right?
6:14 Speaker 03 And just to keep this spot, Dan Rossi has been sleeping in his old white painter's van right across the street for the past 12 years.
6:30 Speaker 02 I crushed the nerve canal and lower back and in my neck. Sleeping probably did it. When's the last time you slept in a bed?
6:39 Speaker 02 I can't even tell you that, you know? I usually get three or four nights a year. Probably couldn't fall asleep in a bed anymore. Most mornings I wake up and say, what the hell am I doing here? You know? Every time I'm doing this, I say the same thing every day and everything I'm back.
6:57 Speaker 03 For Dan, his story starts in the eighties, when a friend who knew he was good with his hands asked him to build a hot dog cart.
7:03 Speaker 02 I never really looked at a hot dog cart. You know, it's something you see, but you never really examine it to how to make it. So I said, well, let me go take a look. I went and I found one. I said, well, this is not a big deal.
7:15 Speaker 03 Dan built the cart easily, was able to sell it, and walked away with a thousand dollars and saw an opportunity here.
7:22 Speaker 02 What I really wanted to do, just wanted to set up a small shop, maybe three, four, five men, and make a good living. That's all.
7:31 Speaker 03 So Dan hired a crew, and Dan and his crew started making all kinds of carts: hot dog carts, ice cream carts, fruit carts.
7:40 Speaker 02 I said, you know what? I'm hustling and hustling and hustling. If I had the permits, well, then I can actually build carts and put them on the street.
7:48 Speaker 03 That's when one of his clients, who had 399 permits, offered to sell Dan his business. Overnight, he went from just building carts to leasing them out for $5 a day all over the streets of New York.
8:00 Speaker 02 I would have to say the average cart at the time was probably making $300, $400 bucks a day. That was then. That was good money.
8:07 Speaker 03 Soon, he had over 300 people, each running their own small business.
8:12 Speaker 02 Every immigrant in the world, every country, you name it. A big influx came with Afghan immigrants and Russian Jewish immigrants. And it was at the time of the war between Russia and Afghanistan. So it was pretty tough getting them in the same womb together.
8:30 Speaker 02 Our leases were going great. We had a great customer base.
8:34 Speaker 03 When a company offered to sell Dan another 100 permits, Dan jumped at it. Now he had 499, the most in the city.
8:43 Speaker 02 It felt good, that position I was in, you know? And we were making money, my men were all making money. Everybody was in a good position.
8:52 Speaker 03 Life was especially good for Dan and his family. He got a house on six acres out in Greenwich, Connecticut for his wife and four daughters. It was all a dream for a guy who had never really known what weekends were.
9:04 Speaker 02 I took my wife out every Saturday night. We went to dinner. I mean, it was like we were in a different world. I said, "This is how real people live, you know? Not guys that are hustling every minute of the day, trying to see how they're gonna do. This is a normal life," I said. We came from nothing, my wife and I, from really nothing. And I told my wife, I said, "Look what we did, and we did it right."
9:26 Speaker 03 While Dan Rossi was enjoying success, a rising, powerful real estate tycoon was making a lot of noise.
9:33 Speaker 02 We would hear on the radio, this guy whining all day long. This guy Trump.
9:39 Speaker 04 You know, I love getting even with people, but I will... Slow up. You love getting even with it. Oh, absolutely.
9:45 Speaker 02 And all we did was complain about the vendors. And it was relentless.
9:51 Speaker 03 Trump didn't like the vendors collecting the sidewalks by his Fifth Avenue high-rise.
9:56 Speaker 02 They're making a bizarre, it looks like we're in Egypt or something. Look at all this crap out here. I mean, you can't walk. It was all nonsense. I said, "Who is this guy?" I didn't even know who he was.
10:06 Speaker 03 But then Trump went further.
10:08 Speaker 02 Then he started to talk about the vets.
10:10 Speaker 03 Dan was a Vietnam vet himself. When Dan started his business, he made sure to hire vets.
10:16 Speaker 02 If you came to me and you said, "Dan, can you help my cousin? He's got no money. Take the car. Go ahead, go to work." Any disabled vet walked in my place got it for free. Just a handshake, that's all.
10:26 Speaker 03 And now Trump was coming after a special right that protects vets in New York.
10:32 Speaker 02 The one thing that nobody understands is that a disabled vet has no restricted streets. I can go anywhere I want. Any street I want.
10:39 Speaker 03 That right to vend with no location restrictions has been a state law in New York since 1894, when it was designed to create economic opportunities for Civil War veterans returning home.
10:51 Speaker 02 It was such a little thing to give them, but it was a great thing because it made people feel like they were productive again. You might not think vending is a big deal, but some of these guys, it's the biggest deal in the world because they can't work for anybody. Nobody's gonna help them. And they're doing it on their own and they're paying their bills. I mean, that's a great accomplishment for somebody who's been cast aside.
11:16 Speaker 03 So Dan wasn't too worried about Donald Trump until he picked up his morning paper with the headline that said 94 streets in midtown Manhattan were now closed to all vendors, including disabled vets.
11:29 Speaker 02 All I kept getting was calls from everybody. You know, all my customers were calling me, Dan, what's going on? What the hell's going on? I don't know. So I says, I might as well find out from the guy.
11:40 Speaker 05 It's our special Friday edition with the mayor of New York City. And now, ladies and gentlemen, his honor, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
11:50 Speaker 06 Good morning. This is Mayor Rudy Giuliani. And today, for the first time, I'm in the studio.
11:55 Speaker 03 So a few days later, Dan called into Mayor Rudy Giuliani's radio show to get some answers.
12:01 Speaker 02 I called him up and I wished him and his family a happy Easter, you know? And I said, look, I'm with the vending business and you guys have closed 94 streets.
12:12 Speaker 02 You know, and I says, why? Why would you do that? I mean, you know, we're up to date on laws. We know what's going on. He says, I don't know anything about that. I says, well, maybe you don't, but it happened. I says, what can we do? He says, now, wait a minute. He says, if they close 94 streets, I'm the mayor, I should know that. And he says, well, I'm gonna get to the bottom.
12:30 Speaker 03 But days later, the streets remained closed.
12:33 Speaker 02 I organized. I went up there and argued with them.
12:36 Speaker 03 That's when Dan became an unofficial spokesperson for the vendors. He showed up at city council meetings to speak out against the street closures.
12:44 Speaker 02 I says, what you're doing is crazy. I says, all you gotta do is limit the number of cars to two on a block. I mean, you got thousands of blocks and you got only a few vendors.
12:53 Speaker 03 And to defend the rights of disabled vets to vend, he even went up to Albany to go before the state legislature.
13:00 Speaker 02 It's bad enough you took away their livelihoods. Here they are, they're all making big six-figure numbers. I mean, that's the biggest insult in the world.
13:10 Speaker 03 And now Dan was making his own headlines in the New York Times.
13:15 Speaker 02 The New York Times came in and they did like a whole full page for me. And right on top of it, you know, the New York Pushcart King. And the worst thing about it is whenever I saw those old movies about the kings and everything, and they would say, "The king is dead, long live the king." I said, "Look at this. The king is gonna be dead and somebody else is gonna be the king." I didn't like that.
13:38 Speaker 03 The article questioned whether Dan should be allowed to own as many permits as he did, 16% of the 3,100 that were out at the time.
13:46 Speaker 02 They said, "Sure, this guy's got 500 permits and then nobody else can get one." Well, I'm not stopping them from getting one, the city is. This is a cap.
13:55 Speaker 03 New York City had a cap in place to limit the number of carts on the streets.
14:00 Speaker 02 There were no more permits, you couldn't get any.
14:02 Speaker 03 To Dan, this was a problem that the city had created, not him.
14:07 Speaker 02 I gotta give up my 500 permits so they can't get them? Why don't they just make 500 more? I'm laughing, but I should have been saying, "Holy Christ, I'm in trouble."
14:19 Speaker 03 Then the New York Daily News accused him of making a fortune, exploiting the vendors who rented his carts.
14:25 Speaker 02 It was the way they were talking about me. "This guy's greedy, he wants to eat by himself." "Oh, I got a lot of permits and I made some money. What did I do wrong? Tell me what I'm doing wrong." I'm just a vendor guy. You know, I might have had the largest vending company in New York, but compared to these people, I was nothing. You know, I was like a pebble compared to the beach, I was nothing. I remember sitting down with one deputy mayor and he says, "You know, you back away from these guys," meaning, you know, the vets. And I says, "That's not gonna happen." He says, "Well, you know, we're gonna bankrupt you," he says. I said, "Well, you do what you gotta do. And if you take me down, you take me down, what can I tell you?"
15:17 Glynn Washington? Oh, it's lonely at the top, Snap Snappers. When we return, will Dan Rossi's pushcart kingdom be toppled? Or can he protect the throne? Stay tuned.
15:41 Speaker 06 At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or- Politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not-science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully, make you see the world anew. Radiolab: Adventures on the Edge of What We Think We Know. Wherever you get your podcasts.
16:13 Glynn Washington? Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to the hot dog king of New York episode when last we left. Dan Rossi was fighting the ban on street vendors in Manhattan, and that has put him in the crosshairs of some of New York City's most rich, most powerful Snap Judgment.
16:34 Speaker 06 You can't vend anywhere that you want to. A civilized, decent city can't exist if people get to decide where they're going to do things, and the city has no ability to say, "There are too many people here. It's too crowded there. This affects public safety, the ability to use the streets."
16:49 Speaker 03 When Dan heard Mayor Giuliani was holding a press conference about the street closures, he decided to show up with his attorney.
16:57 Speaker 02 Every camera you could think of, every news station you could think of, was there. Behind Giuliani was all these big boards, five or six of these big three-by-five boards, and they had different kinds of graphs on them. And on each one was my name on top of each one. And he carved them up, "He owns this much of this industry." It hit me like a brick when I saw my name on all these posters. I said, "What is this? The hell is going on here?" He completely reversed everything to make me the bad guy. So now, one of the reporters says, "Okay, he owns 499 permits. What has he done wrong?" And he couldn't answer. And that was the end of the thing. And they were all leaving and I get up with my attorney.
17:40 Speaker 02 I walk over to the table and I said, you know, I'm Dan Rossi. He didn't know me. He never saw me. I'm Dan Rossi. Who do you think you're talking about? You don't know me. You don't know what I've done in my life. Who are you to talk like this? So he's got his head looking down at the ground. And he don't know what to do. And I says, oh, you didn't have any problem looking at these TVs cameras? Look at me in the eye. And he's looking down. I says, you know what it is? You're just a punk. And I'm going over to the table. My lawyer grabs me and he's holding me back and Giuliani runs out the door. And I said, and I turned around. He says, are you crazy, Dan? You can't go attack a mayor. I says, why not? He's attacked me for the last half hour. Why not? He's gonna destroy my life. I can't go smack him in the head?
18:25 Speaker 03 That same week, Dan was in his office when he noticed across the street a camera.
18:31 Speaker 02 It was on a tripod, this big damn camera with the telescopic lens.
18:35 Speaker 03 Pointed directly at his shop.
18:38 Speaker 02 You saw the guy? I mean, it wasn't like he was trying to hide. Look at this, I said, oh, my God. And I says, now, nobody's gonna walk in this door.
18:48 Speaker 03 And then the phone calls started.
18:51 Speaker 02 We knew the phone was bugged. But one day I just picked it up and I got the click. And as soon as I heard that double click, I knew exactly what was going on. And I said, look at this. Look at this. But then we'd started to get threatening phone calls. So I would get a phone call, you know, we're gonna do this to you. We're gonna do that to you. Cursing, you know, we're gonna cut this off and we're gonna do this.
19:14 Speaker 03 Dan knew he had put a target on his back. But the real threat to everything he built came from the New York City Council. They passed the one vendor, one permit law. It would later be referred to as the Dan Rossi Law.
19:29 Speaker 02 What the law said was you can't have more than one. You can't lease a permit. You can't lease a car with a permit.
19:34 Speaker 03 Overnight, Dan lost all but one of his 499 permits.
19:39 Speaker 02 What am I gonna do with one permit? What can I do with it? You know? I remember telling my wife, "We can walk now." And she says, "Well, I know you're not walking. And you gotta fight. They can't do this and say this about you." Because then it's true. I said, "Anne, you don't understand." I said, "They'll take our shoes. They got everybody in their pockets." She says, "So let them take our shoes."
20:03 Speaker 03 And they do. When Dan tries to go back to building carts, all of his carts are failing the health inspection.
20:10 Speaker 02 Well, how can you fail it? I mean, I set this inspection program up. Everything that you're doing is what I taught you guys how to do years ago. And the inspector says, "These are Dan Ross's carts, fail them." I was really down. You know, I was very depressed. The few Jewish customers I had, I mean, they're Orthodox Jew. They were very religious. And one kid comes up. I'm sitting in my office all by myself. The place is a ghost town. There's nothing going on. And he comes in. I says, "You know, how you doing? But I can't help you. Those days are gone." He says, "No, I didn't come up here to get help. I came up to see how you're doing. I know how hard it's been for you. I know you," he says. "I know that everything they're saying about you is lies. I know they got people out there lying about you. We know it.
20:54 Speaker 02 We hear it on the street. And I just want to make sure you're okay." And, you know, it touched me. It really did that somebody cared. And he says, "I want you to come and talk to my rabbi." And I says, "I'm a Catholic." And I just couldn't do it. But it was enough that he came and he thought about me. That was something. I was in the toilet and my guys were sitting around doing nothing. It was terrible. And I says, "I can't do it no more. I can't do it. There's nothing coming in. You guys, you know, week after week, we're here. Nothing's happening." I says, "I gotta shut it down."
21:32 Speaker 03 Dan laid off his entire crew and closed his business's doors for good.
21:38 Speaker 02 You gotta go next, though. I failed for everybody. I failed for my family. I failed for these guys. And that was the end of it.
21:46 Speaker 03 But Dan kept fighting. He went into debt trying to appeal the one-vendor-one-permit law for nothing. His wife suffered a stroke. He lost the house in Greenwich. And the man who everyone called the Pushcart King ended up living out of a van.
22:02 Speaker 02 We had no choice. We had nowhere to go. You know, it was just me and my wife and the van I borrowed. I mean, I had just given up on trying to make a living. I just gave up. I didn't know how to do it anymore.
22:17 Speaker 02 I'm saying, here I am. Well, I reached in my pocket and there was a roll of bills and now I can't find 50 cents for a newspaper? Yeah, it was... What happened to me? I just couldn't put it together. I resorted to borrowing money from people and I never did that. I never did that.
22:36 Speaker 03 Eventually, family did take Dan and his wife in. And Dan went back to trying to hustle side jobs to make a few bucks.
22:46 Speaker 03 Then Dan got a call from a disabled vet. He had a hot dog cart right in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but he told Dan he was being pushed out.
22:56 Speaker 02 And I said, "Well, let me go down there and see what the problem is. There's not much I could do, but at least let me see what the problem is." They took this little Cushman scooter and put it in his spot. I'm talking to him and I said, "You know, why don't you just move a few feet? It's not that big of a difference." But what he was saying was they're taking away my dignity, my rights, to vend where I'm allowed. He didn't have it in him to come back the next day. And then it hit me and I'm sitting there and I'm saying, "You know, I have one permit that they left me with." I says, if I went and got a cart and I put it over here, and at the end of the day, I made a hundred bucks, I made a hundred bucks. I actually said to myself, Dan, you want to really get back into this fight?
23:41 Speaker 02 And to me, that thought lasted about one second. You know, and I says, where do I get a cart?
23:48 Speaker 03 The man who had built hundreds of carts now had to borrow one.
23:51 Speaker 02 I tell you, it was very humiliating to me personally. I was the largest in the history of the city. And here I am borrowing a cart.
24:03 Speaker 02 Very, very humbling. I said, I can't believe that I'm doing this, you know?
24:10 Speaker 02 I said, but I gotta eat. So what do you want on that jumbo?
24:16 Speaker 02 My way of doing it. Yeah, I want the damn special. There's only one way to make it. Spicy mustard,
24:24 Speaker 02 sauerkraut, and just a taste of onions, and that's it. You don't get crazy. I never served a hot dog in my life, you know? And here I am, I just fell right into it, how hard could this be? Good part about it is no matter what you put on it, you always taste the hot dog. It's a good hot dog.
24:43 Speaker 03 From the first hot dog that he served in front of the Met, it was a battle with the cops.
24:49 Speaker 02 I told the guys, look, guys, I know the law, I'm a disabled vet. Just leave me alone, I'm not looking for trouble. They just need to get on my feet.
24:56 Speaker 03 And since he's been there. Well, I'm not gonna leave. We can't allow you to come in.
25:01 Speaker 02 I'm in already. Right, and that's why you're receiving a summons. They were relentless. Three times a day, I mean. After a while, I said, you know, guys, I'm starting to get pissed off. I can be in any park. Sergeant Harrison, do you remember that saying, you can be in any park? Read it! Could you pass it, please? Read it!
25:22 Speaker 02 You come back again, something, we're gonna do something. So I said, next time, I'm moving 10 feet closer. As they came, they talking to me, I just took the cart and pushed it 10 feet closer. Talk to me again, I push another 10 feet closer. When I get in the middle, I'm not moving. I'm letting you know now, stop what you're doing. They wouldn't stop. Got in front of the Met, right in the middle, and now what? They arrested me.
25:47 Speaker 06 And last time we were put in handcuffs, brought to the precinct, received the summons, and took the card out.
25:54 Speaker 02 And you're gonna have to do that again. And you're gonna have to do it again and again. Until you allow me to exercise my right to go to work.
26:01 Speaker 03 Dan's still battling with the cops.
26:04 Speaker 02 So now, we have a disagreement. I'm in the bar, you want me to leave? You gotta arrest me for me to leave. Then we'll put you down. That's it.
26:13 Speaker 03 Dan has been arrested six times for vending in front of the Met. He's been issued over 350 tickets.
26:20 Speaker 02 I just wanted to go to work, make a few hundred dollars, save enough to get an apartment, and we start up and live in our life again, you know? But when they started to come at me, I mean, I'm the kind of guy that after a while, now you wanna get in a fight, I'll get in a fight. That's what you want. I don't back away from nobody. When you're harassing me and trying to abuse me, it's not gonna work. This is all I got left. Not that it amounts to much, but it's all I got left.
26:50 Speaker 03 Every night, Dan lays down in his van, parked across the street from the Met, hoping to get a few hours of sleep before doing it all again the next day.
27:03 Speaker 02 I don't even know what day it is sometimes. I ask my daughter, I ask one of the guys, you know, what's today, Thursday, Friday? I just get lost in the time. And the worst part about it, I don't get to see my wife. I keep Sunday afternoon open for her so I can take her to get a brunch and, you know, we can have a few hours together. And then my daughters will take her down and she'll stay with me at the Met for a few hours now and then.
27:30 Speaker 02 Hello. Hi. Six. Six hot dogs?
27:35 Speaker 03 Six hot dogs. And fries.
27:38 Speaker 02 And fries?
27:39 Speaker 03 Why are you still out there? And what keeps you going?
27:42 Speaker 02 Well, I'm out there because I still have to make a living. You know? Still gotta keep a roof over my wife's head. And what keeps me going is just a day's work. You know? Plus the fact that, you know, um...
27:58 Speaker 02 I just can't let them beat me.
28:02 Speaker 02 First hot dog, mustard, ketchup? Eh, one without. The next one? Eh, ketchup and mustard.
28:26 Glynn Washington? A huge thank you to Dan Rossi for sharing his story with Snap. At 73 years young, Dan continues to hold down his spot in front of the Met. So if you're ever nearby, stop by and salute the New York City Hot Dog King. Tell him, "I said to ask for ketchup." Actually, actually, you might not want to do that. Now, there is so much we couldn't share with you about Dan's experience. To find out more, check out his new memoir, The New York Hot Dog King: From Rags to Riches to Less Than Rags. You can find it, as well as links to all the Hot Dog King stuff, Dan Rossi's social media, all of it, at snapjudgment.org.
29:12 Glynn Washington? Additional thanks to our friends at Vice, whose series Munchies featured Dan back in 2019 and was a big inspiration for this story. You can find a link to that video on our site as well, snapjudgment.org. The Hot Dog King of New York was scored by Clay Xavier and the story was produced by Beau Walsh.
29:39 Glynn Washington? Now, in 2020, when Dan reopened his cart for business during the pandemic, The New York Times once again came calling, this time with an article declaring that the Hot Dog King was back. Producer Beau Walsh was able to catch up with some of New York City's finest food vendors to hear a few words about the king.
30:03 Glynn Washington? I met Dan Rossi once. I seen him. He's where I get the footprint from to do what I had to do.
30:10 Speaker 06 We should sleep out here, move my car early and then 12 o'clock at night and sleep out here in my spot. That's what I do.
30:19 Speaker 06 I just thought it was cool that, yeah, Marine was sticking up to the city.
30:24 Speaker 06 He was the only one there that was like, yeah, that he was doing it. The man still do what he's doing, still strong, that's all that matters, you know? That's all material, whatever they took for him is a material, but he's still here.
30:37 Speaker 04 We see every day, you know, like how he does, he's living the fun, he tries to, you know, help everybody, you know? Like, he's got a really big heart. Other people want him out of here, and we always have said that, uh, it that's not gonna happen. Because there are better ones here that is gonna help him out.
30:59 Speaker 05 He was really the king, the hot dog king.
31:11 Glynn Washington? Now, what Bo didn't tell you was that the legend of the hot dog king, Dan Rossi, goes beyond just the five boroughs. It's spread all the way across the pond to the UK where the Burner Band recorded this tribute song for the king.
31:33 Glynn Washington? Find the link to it on our website, snapjudgment.org.
31:40 Glynn Washington? Okay. After stuffing your face with hot dogs, get ready. We're going to summer camp when Snap Judgment continues. Stay tuned.
31:56 Glynn Washington? Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is Glynn Washington. And Snap, as before we even get started with this next story, I want you to know that we've changed the names to protect the innocent. Today, we're about to take you to one of the scariest places ever. Summer camp.
32:17 Glynn Washington? It's three days before the big dance at Camp Discovery in northern Minnesota.
32:22 Speaker 06 Camp's in full swing. They're singing around the campfire. Kids are at waterfront. They're playing those trust games where you get blindfolded and have to walk around cones.
32:33 Speaker 00 Right.
32:35 Speaker 00 Four. Left. Four.
32:38 Speaker 06 But there's also so much excitement about the dance. Everybody's scrambling to get a date, and there are more girls than boys.
32:47 Speaker 06 There's so much drama. Oh, my goodness. Kaitlyn's 13. She's into gymnastics. She has long, dark brown hair. She's popular, and she says if you want to stay up on the drama, who's asked who, who got dumped, there's one place to be. If you go play basketball, usually you're like, the basketball crowd is kind of the, it's kind of like the gossip area. That's where most of the things happen. And the negotiations of who's going to ask who are kind of complicated. So it's kind of like, oh, I want him. Wait, I also want him, kind of thing. And then you have one friend who wants to go with him, but it's like, wait, I wanted him too. So should you say yes because you're my friend?
33:33 Speaker 06 Most of the boys seem like they could care less about the drama and the dance, except Nathan. He's a boy on a mission to get a date. Nathan's 11, funny, and a little sheltered. This is his third summer at camp.
33:48 Speaker 05 That's one of the reasons I like to come here, because you don't have a parent to keep going, hey, don't do that. No, hey, don't do that. But, but in other cases, it's learning what happens when you don't listen to your parents.
34:04 Speaker 06 Last year, Nathan had an amazing time at the dance. He was too embarrassed to ask anybody, but he wore a suit, which was a big hit. This year, he really wants to go with someone. He's already asked one girl.
34:17 Speaker 05 And I, and I might have gotten rejected. I don't know yet. She said, I don't know. And I'm so nervous because I want to take her.
34:25 Speaker 06 What, are you going to ask again?
34:27 Speaker 05 Yes.
34:28 Speaker 06 What's going to go through your head when you walk up to her?
34:32 Speaker 06 Fear, um, mostly fear. You know, what girls do when they like a guy, they hit him. They do stuff like that, I know from experience. And guys, I don't know what they do. Showing off, that's what boys do. So Nathan asks the girl again. She says no. I cried in the cabin. I cried in my bed. Cried in the bathroom. What made, why were you crying? Well, because I had never been rejected before. Never? Never, not like that.
35:12 Speaker 06 Most of the kids here are really used to getting rejected because they all have skin diseases. Some kids have splotches, or moles, or scales. Some are bald, or allergic to the sun. Some have life-threatening diseases. There are kids who get enormous blisters from just walking, eating, even changes in temperature. They're covered in bandages. They're in wheelchairs. Camps swarming with dermatologists and nurses. There's a big table in the mess hall where kids line up to get their medicine. Compared to a lot of the campers, Kaitlyn's skin disease is pretty mild. She has eczema. She's an Army brat, and every time she starts a new school, she has to explain what's wrong with her skin.
35:57 Speaker 06 I remember one time I was going up to get a math sheet, and there was this person who I thought was beginning to be my friend, kind of. And I was going up to get a sheet, and she touched my elbow, which was really dry and rough at that time. And she, she like yelled really loud, ew, that's disgusting. Your elbow's so rough and dry. And then everybody came over and touched my elbow. And I felt like, you know how you go to a museum or something, and you're all staring at like a loser inside a box or something? I felt like so much like that. Everybody at camp has this feeling, like, all the time in their normal lives. I have a skin disease. I've had this feeling. I came to this camp as a kid, and as a counselor.
36:42 Speaker 06 It's like, it's like you're at a regular camp, but, but it seems... The only time you'll ever be normal. There's a sense here that you can just do whatever you want, be whoever you want, and your personality can completely change from school to here. I think this is a complete bully-free zone.
37:04 Speaker 00 At Camp Discovery, Kaitlyn's not a lizard. She's beautiful. She has her pick of suitors, but she only has eyes for Christian, a boy in a wheelchair who has epidermolysis bullosa. It's the most severe disease at camp. In some cases, it's fatal. Christian's skin is covered in blisters. His hands and feet are knotted and fused with scar tissue. His arms and legs are covered in bandages. And last year, he and Kaitlyn, they hung out.
37:35 Speaker 06 We talked a lot during the dance and after horseback riding. We went and saw the puppies and stuff. That was pretty cute and took pictures with him and the puppies.
37:45 Speaker 00 OK, so you guys, you guys definitely, you know each other.
37:47 Speaker 06 Yes, it's kind of cute, I guess. Last year, we danced a lot, and he asked to take a picture with me at the end of the dance.
37:54 Speaker 00 But it turns out Rachel, Kaitlyn's cabin mate, also likes Christian. Rachel's quiet, funny, but quiet. She doesn't want to be interviewed. She has a disease called vitiligo, so her skin's really, really blotchy. Rachel's already going to the dance with Christian, but she invites Kaitlyn to come as a sort of triple date.
38:15 Speaker 00 This is a power move in the world of middle school girl politics. They're both going to the dance with Christian, and nobody's feelings are getting hurt.
38:24 Speaker 00 Meanwhile, Nathan is still on the hunt for a date. He's also got EB, but not as badly as Christian. He wears bandages on his hands, elbows, and feet. It's basically where there's layers of skin. And my skin, it doesn't have the glue between the layers, so it just peels easily. And it like makes blisters? Yeah, blisters, junctionally.
38:49 Speaker 05 It's not the worst, but it's not the best.
38:51 Speaker 06 Now, there is a girl who likes Nathan. She's cute, but her skin is worse than those other girls. Nathan doesn't ask her to the dance. He asks someone else. And girls whose skin diseases you can't really see keep turning him down.
39:06 Speaker 05 One of the reasons why I aim for the pretty girls is I can't see myself. In my head, I have an envisioning of like a kid with no blemishes on the skin. And so I just went for them first.
39:27 Speaker 06 I mean, when you think about the possibility of you not being asked because of your skin, how does it feel?
39:33 Speaker 05 A bit of anger, but I would understand.
39:36 Speaker 06 Why would you understand?
39:38 Speaker 05 Because I didn't ask Savannah. I mean, it's not all because of her skin. It's just, well, some of it is, yeah.
39:45 Speaker 06 You know, like thinking about how she feels, you know, not being asked maybe a little bit because of her skin.
39:51 Speaker 05 Yeah.
39:52 Speaker 06 What does it make you feel like?
39:56 Speaker 05 I don't feel like a total monster, but it seems a bit mean, just a bit.
40:02 Speaker 06 So, at Skin Camp, looks matter, unless you have really bad EB, the blistering disease. These kids, bandaged and in wheelchairs, they become the darlings of camp, especially the boys, who usually end up getting asked to the dance. The last day of camp, before the dance, a lot of girls leave waterfront early to get ready. Kaitlyn's the cabin makeup guru. She helps other girls with eyeliner and lipstick. The boys aren't so worried about how they look. Nathan's one of the first kids ready for the dance. He tells me he brushed his teeth and used Axe Body Wash. He brought his dress pants to camp, but he's packed them, so he's wearing yellow gym shorts.
40:49 Speaker 06 The mess hall's all decorated. The tables are pushed to the sides. The lights are low. Music's pumping.
40:57 Speaker 06 Kaitlyn and Rachel look cute in their dresses. Christian's wearing a button-down shirt. And they head into the dance together. Nathan waits outside for his date. It's been a rough week, getting rejected by girls he thought were in his league. At the last minute, his date ditches him. And he's left alone. I feel a bit sad that I was rejected again. Basically, I don't know if I was rejected. It's time to slow down. Okay, I'm outside.
41:29 Speaker 06 Are you gonna stay outside during the slow dance?
41:33 Speaker 06 I wonder if my date will come and find me, if I still do have him. I wonder if I have a plan E. Do you need a plan E? Maybe. Just in case.
41:48 Speaker 06 I don't like slow dancing. I don't either. I don't either. It's the worst. I slow dance once.
41:58 Speaker 06 Nathan's pretty bummed. So I let him call his mom from my phone. He explained what happened with all his dates. Tonight's the dance. Yes, it is. Did you tell Sarah what you did last year? Uh, well, last year, what happened? You wore your, you took your nice suit and you didn't plan to ask a girl and girls were telling you to ask someone? And you absolutely refused to, you just went and danced and had a great time? I was embarrassed, yeah. So you were too embarrassed last year to ask? Yes. But you wore that wonderful suit, which you then got all bloody. Oh, so he did tell you about that? Yes, that he came home wearing a bloody suit?
42:40 Speaker 06 Oh, yeah, with shower shoes that he had worn to the dance the night before. And you know he has fragile skin. And someone had stepped on his foot that night at the dance? And about a third of his foot... With a new wound and he was so excited and tired he couldn't tell anyone. So he traveled home that way. Oh, my God. I know. He's not allowed to come home without making sure that, you know, somebody's looked at his hand and feet at least a little bit. So Sarah said that she'd like me to encourage you to go in right now. And so that means right now. Okay. Will you do that for both of us? Yes, ma'am. I love you, son. Love you, mama.
43:23 Speaker 06 So Nathan finally heads into the dance. Inside, things start off okay. I ask Rachel how it's going. She says, go talk to Christian. Can I talk to you? You have two dates. What's that like? The front. Yeah? What's the best part about having two dates to the dance? Dancing. It's pretty nice to get to dance with both of them. But the thing is, he's not dancing with Kaitlyn. She's disappeared and is dancing with her friends. Christian starts asking Rachel where Kaitlyn is. He gets more and more upset.
44:05 Speaker 06 And then he storms out of the mess hall and back to the boys' cabin, barricading his wheelchair against the door. Counselors finally convince them all to come back into the dance, and they start dancing in this weird, sad line. Rachel's holding a counselor's hand on one side, Christian on the other, Christian's holding Kaitlyn's hand, and her face is buried in her counselor's stomach. She's sobbing. The dance ends and they all leave sad. Because it like broke my heart to think that he probably doesn't get this much attention at all. And then I ask him to play dance and I don't dance with him. I just wanted to dance with some of my friends.
44:49 Speaker 06 It's like I'm being a bully. And I, yeah, I felt like I was a bully in a place where there's supposed to be a bully-free zone.
44:57 Speaker 00 Yeah, you know, it's like it's cool to go to dance with a kid who has the worst skin disease, but then you don't dance with him, you know?
45:04 Speaker 06 Yeah, it's like, it makes it even worse that like the people who have it worse, I'm also like the meanest to it feels like. Like all of a sudden that I'm picking on the ones that like I went to the dance purposely to go to not dance with him.
45:20 Speaker 00 I don't think anybody thinks that's true.
45:23 Speaker 06 I do.
45:25 Speaker 00 Well, I guess this is something where you just kind of learn, you know?
45:29 Speaker 06 Yeah. Right now, I feel like I'm not learning anything, but right now it just feels like this is mean pain.
45:38 Speaker 06 And the night still isn't over. I'm talking to Kaitlyn by the bunks. When there's a knock on the door, it's Christian, flanked by counselors. He's come with flowers and he asks for Kaitlyn. I think you said... I will come here?
45:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, I will. Sure.
45:55 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
45:57 Speaker 06 But Kaitlyn's so embarrassed and ashamed, she hesitates to even go to the door. You'll feel so much better. Oh, I will. No, every time I look at him, I feel 10 times worse. I know, but that's why we've got to fix it. It won't be fixed. I'll always feel like this. You don't have to always feel like this. But I will. When I get something in my head that I did something wrong, I just feel like that forever.
46:20 Speaker 06 He wants to make it better. Because he did nothing wrong! He wants to talk to you. He doesn't know that he did nothing wrong. He wants to talk to you and work it out. So Kaitlyn reluctantly goes to the door.
46:35 Speaker 00 Go on, lady, you got it.
46:37 Speaker 06 I will. I'll be with her too.
46:42 Speaker 06 No, you're good.
46:45 Speaker 06 Thank you. I'm sorry too. Kaitlyn's counselors whisper to her to see if she can give Christian a hug. No, no, no, no. Can I give you a hug?
46:58 Speaker 06 Yeah. Okay.
47:01 Speaker 06 I'm sorry too.
47:05 Speaker 06 Good morning. Christian hands Kaitlyn a little bouquet of flowers. The thing is, Christian has spent the whole night chasing Kaitlyn. Rachel, the girl with the more visible skin disease, his other date, has been forgotten. Lacey's their counselor. She's a dermatology resident, and she watched the whole night unfold. I think it probably is the most painful thing I've ever watched in person. Why? I think mostly because this camp is supposed to be a place where kids are safe from things like this. And they come here to fit in, possibly for the first time in their whole lives. And then... And even the ones who are doing the hurting,
47:49 Speaker 06 they understand what they're doing to the other kids, but they can't stop doing it.
47:55 Speaker 06 I mean, yeah, that's like the catch 22 of this place, right? Like... It has its own hierarchy. And in some ways, it's different than the rest of the world. But in other ways, it isn't, because even that backfires. I just wish that this wasn't a place that that could even happen, I guess. She says that kind of makes it worse.
48:20 Speaker 06 A rough night turns into a rough morning. At the airport, all the kids are hugging and crying. Getting on that plane means heading back to the real world. Even though last night's drama was intense, nobody wants to go home.
48:49 Glynn Washington? Yes, there is lots of love for everyone at Camp Discovery. It's sponsored by the American Academy of Dermatology, and it is free. It is fun. Learn more about it by going to AAD.org, search for Camp Discovery. We're gonna have a link as well on snapjudgment.org. The original sound design for that story was by Renzo Gorio. That piece was produced by Sarah Harris.
49:20 Glynn Washington? You know what's even better than hearing a story? Giving one. 'Tis the season. You can give the gift of story. Send your friends and your enemies. A little taste of the Snap Judgment Podcast. Snap is brought to you by the team that puts one hot dog in their mouth at a time. Except for the Uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich. There's Nancy Lopez, Pat Massey Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryo, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decott, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, and Regina Berriaco. And this is not the news. No ways this is the news. In fact, you can own the most popular hot dog stand in New York City. Or you can make a small change so that just one day a year,
50:05 Glynn Washington? you only serve vegan sausages. And when angry mob respond by tearing your stand apart, stick by stick, take Silas. And the fact that even then, in the middle of the mayhem, you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.
Previous Split Screen: Thrill Seekers from the CBC Next I Got Ball Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated