[The 90’s raw: Windshield Cleaners]

Raw tape for the award-winning series The 90's. This tape follows a young windshield cleaner attempting to earn some money at the corner of Ashland and Armitage in Chicago.

0:00Copy video clip URL Young entrepreneur Antonio Moneyham cleans car windows at the intersection of Ashland, Armitage, and Elston. Moneyham credits his success ($75/day in four hours) to his politeness and his “big ol’ Crackerjack smile.” He talks about his regular customers, including one man who gives $20 a day to whoever cleans his car, and a friend of his who cleaned Michael Jordan’s windshields. He also talks about how he and his friends realized that this intersection would be particularly lucrative based on the timing of the lights and how they traditionally cause a backup of cars. He talks about trouble with the police and claims that the other window cleaners have more trouble than him because they are rude and disrespectful to customers. He does think that it is unfair that he sometimes gets arrested for what he does. “Any kid could be out there stealing things, and out of all the kids, we are the ones who get busted, even though we’re trying to do something right,” he says.

30:40Copy video clip URL Some of the bad kids Antonio mentioned earlier come to the intersection and he leaves. One of these kids, David Jimenez, is the one who claims to have cleaned Michael Jordan’s windows. He briefly describes the experience. Then there is footage of him cleaning. He is much pushier than Antonio and tends to clean windows even when the occupants explicitly indicate they don’t want it.

46:55Copy video clip URL End of tape.