The Window Cleaners Poor Distant Cousin - The Squeegee Bum

Cops powerless to stop squeegee guys: “Welcome to Pat’s drive-through window service,’’ said the man, who grew up in Houston but is now homeless in Boston as he lunged toward the window of a woman’s SUV with a wet towel at the corner of Albany and Herald streets. He flashed the driver a grin short on teeth as he ran a squeegee over the mess he made and uttered “God Bless You” as the light turned and she sped away.

“It’s the people who drive the older cars that are the best tippers,’’ said Pat the Squeegee Guy, as he calls himself. “The worst are in Beemers or Jaguars.” He’s 33, bespectacled, with scraggy blond hair and dirt-caked hands. He earns his living washing drivers’ windows — even if they don’t want him to. “Sometimes I can make ‘a buck-thirty’ [$130] a day out here.”

Some see rush-hour window washers as industrious panhandlers, working for some cash while living on the streets. Others see them as a menace, a public nuisance that former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani cracked down on as part of his successful effort to reduce petty crime and eradicate urban blight.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said his cops are hamstrung by a Massachusetts statute that only prohibits “aggressive solicitation.” That makes it harder to act against squeegee guys. “Commissioner Davis is frustrated with aggressive panhandling and wants officers to crack down on the issue. Aggressive panhandling is dangerous for passing motorists as well as the individuals doing the soliciting,’’ said BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll. “From an enforcement perspective, unfortunately it can be difficult to prove what is considered ‘aggressive’ but officers will continue to do everything possible to address this concern.”

Pat said Boston cops regularly ask his name, run it to make sure he doesn’t have any open arrest warrants, and then tell him to pack up. When that happens, he takes the train to Somerville and sets up an operation there. “Sure, some people get mad,’’ he said. “Some people tell me not to do it or wave me off. Most of the time, I just do it anyway. I’m not out here robbing or stealing. I’m providing a service.”

Not everyone sees it that way. “I hate these guys,’’ said one woman in a white Range Rover. But Scott Powers, of Plymouth, didn’t have a problem with Pat washing his window. “What’s the big deal?” The squeegee business has gotten so big, Pat said, that there is at least one organized faction that assembles on Massachusetts Avenue near Boston Medical Center. A man known as “the General” has a crew working under him.“The General used to work in New York,’’ Pat said. “They kicked him out, so now he’s here.’’And he’s here with a squad of squeegee guys the Boston police can do very little about.

Stories behind the squeegees give a life to faceless men: The window washers at traffic lights may be annoying to some, but to Belinda Campbell they were an inspiration. Squeegee and spray can always in hand, the windscreen washer known only as Maurice is a well-loved Annandale identity. As a former stagehand who used to work behind the scenes in the music industry, he brings a theatrical touch to the business of washing car windscreens. Sometimes he dresses as a cowboy, a clown or even a detective to the delight of children in the back seat of the cars he cleans while stopped at traffic lights. When police received an official complaint that he disturbed the traffic flow, inner-west drivers rallied to sign a petition to keep him on their median strips.

Maurice features in an exhibition, Intersections, by the photographer Belinda Campbell, which opens today at Glebe Public School, offering a clearer view into the lives of Sydney windscreen washers. The exhibition is funded by a $5000 grant from the Australian musician John Butler and his wife, Danielle Caruana's, Seed Fund's Art For the Public program, which encourages artists to create a form of social commentary and communication between them and the public.

 

Much like Henry Lawson, who more than a century ago turned his pen to paint portraits of the harried lives of urban Sydneysiders in his poem Faces in the Street, Campbell focused her camera lens on our city's windscreen washers to tell the story of how these colourful characters came to work on the streets. Like Lawson, her work is a plea on behalf of these men, often ignored, abused and misunderstood by drivers, to not see them as outcasts, but rather street smart survivors.

Of the five windscreen washers in the exhibition, all had worked at other jobs most of their lives. One was a motocross champion, one a trained locksmith, another studied fine arts at university before dropping out to work in road construction. All fell on hard times. Only one is homeless, two now live in housing commission homes, and in good weeks the others can afford to pay their rent with the money they collect from drivers. ''I think something that was common in all of them was their aversion to the dole or being perceived as bludgers - it was important for them all to work not take handouts,'' Campbell said

''I found them to be the most warm, wonderful guys with amazing stories of survival. I am so fond of them now. I saw one them the other day - he has osteoporosis and was really struggling and I got really saddened by it. ''Although washing windscreens at traffic lights is an illegal way of making money and attracts a $65 fine, all the windscreen washers Campbell photographed considered themselves proud small businessmen. Only one, John, had been fined, but many have been moved on by police. Campbell, who spent her childhood in Melbourne and moved to Sydney to attend university, got the idea for the project while sitting in a car at a set of traffic lights when a windscreen washer approached.

''The acquaintance I was with had a really negative reaction which struck me as odd. But after spending a lot of time with these men they do receive a lot of negative responses from people and sometimes even violence." Toby, the motocross champion who had to give up his racing career in the late 1970s, had his leg crushed when he was struck by five bikes, recently needed medical attention when the same leg was run over by a driver.

The rain and the winter often take a toll as much as the ill-sentiment - often from P-platers who zoom past in their cars and yell out to the men "get a real job". But there are enough supportive drivers and police willing to turn a blind eye, to keep them making a living. By telling their stories, Campbell's goal is to make people think twice before winding up their windows and avoiding eye contact with these men. "They don't know life," one of the windscreen washers, Dylan, says of the dreary gaze of the post-work peak hour faces, "they've just been sitting in an office." "How can they be sympathetic to you if they don't know your story," he says of police and Sydney drivers.