On a cold February evening, I found myself in a fire engine red Toyota Tundra parked on Fifth Avenue outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art with none other than the “Hot Dog King,” Dan Rossi.

Rossi, a 71-year-old Bronx native, is a vendor with the juiciest location—directly in front of the Met. His two hot dog carts sit side-by-side, positioned to satisfy the desperate parents clutching hungry children, romantic couples holding hands and solo art enthusiasts. But Rossi has a much more complex role in the street vendor industry.

I nearly froze waiting for him for three hours in 35-degree weather. While waiting, I treated myself to a $3 dog and a $1 bottle of water. It was divine. The museum was closing and people slowly filtered out and down the steps when Rossi pulled up in his truck.

Rossi taking a phone call. | Photo by Paige Hagy

“There’s a girl who wants to interview you,” prefaced the younger man who was running the cart when I arrived.

A white-haired, teddy bear of a man in a black winter coat and jeans lumbered around the side of the truck. I assumed there was a polite smile on his face, but I couldn’t tell underneath the mask.

I introduced myself as a journalist, and he replied in a thick New York accent, “Hey, I’m Dan.”

By this time, I was visibly shaking from the cold, so he offered to talk in the warmth of his still-running Toyota. I immediately accepted and climbed aboard.

The interior was clean and smelled faintly of Febreze. A laptop sat on the center console, used masks hung from the windshield wiper control stick and a New York Hot Dog sticker decorated the glove compartment. He tossed the jacket that was laying at my feet into the back seat, causing the rosary hanging from the rearview mirror to swing gently.

Rossi said he used to have an empire of 500 carts in the ‘90s. Back then, he lived in a beautiful home in Greenwich, Conn. with his family while his company thrived as the largest and most respected in the city.

Then Rossi lost everything, including his home. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani bankrupted him by passing a law restricting owners to only one permit, effectively closing down all of the commissaries in the city. But who was the puppet master behind Giuliani according to Rossi?

A customer paying Rossi at his cart. | Photo by Paige Hagy

None other than the real estate hustler Donald J. Trump.

Street vendors were an eyesore and a nuisance to the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association. The New York Times quoted the Association in 1986, saying it looked like “Istanbul on a Sunday” and demanded stricter enforcement of peddling laws.

Disabled veterans in particular were the choice target of Mr. Trump.

In a 1991 letter obtained by the New York Daily News, Trump wrote, “While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax-paying citizens and businesses? Do we allow Fifth Avenue, one of the world’s finest and most luxurious shopping districts, to be turned into an outdoor flea market, clogging and seriously downgrading the area?”

As a disabled Vietnam veteran, Rossi took serious offense to the injustice he saw, and he fought back.

“I guess that’s why I got into this,” Rossi said. “I saw the abuse, and thinking about all the nonsense they did to us when we got back [from Vietnam], and here you are, the most powerful people in the city doing the same thing to the same men! You didn’t step on them enough and now you’re gonna take what little bit they had?”

We sat silently for a bit. The click click click of the truck’s hazard lights became deafening again. The busker’s saxophone song played on, somber and slow.

“Are you happy?” I asked quietly.

Rossi is a proud Italian father of four daughters and an even prouder grandfather of 14 grandchildren. He’s been married to a woman who understands his stubborn, fighting spirit for 48 years.

“Am I happy? Uh…” He sighed. “You know this thing doesn’t leave me. If I had failed in business, I would have been better today because I failed, you know? I did it, I tried and it didn’t work. But to have them do what they did to me. It wasn’t just to take away my business, it was to destroy my character, and I’m not the kind of guy you destroy his character.”

No, he is certainly not that kind of guy.

I thanked him again for the interview and asked for some parting wisdom.

“Do the right thing,” he said. “At the end of the day, you gotta be able to go home and go to sleep.”

Ironic coming from him, considering he slept in his hot dog cart for seven years so it wouldn’t be towed, but I knew what he meant.

A laminated sign sitting in the front window of Rossi’s cart. | Photo by Paige Hagy

Rossi is writing a book. It spells out the plotline of his life: Rags to Riches to Less than Rags. In it, he talks about his childhood in the Bronx, his years in military service, his empire of food carts, his fall and the injustice that was done to him. He says he’ll be finished writing in a few months. I plan on reading it.

When I asked him if he would retire, he scoffed at the notion.

“Retire? Why would I retire?”

The Hot Dog King vs. Donald J. Trump