NEEDCOM: FOCUS GROUP: ATMs

DONALD:

She's (Prim) the one who told me how to go into banks and whatnot. 'Cause I was sitting there one day, right, on Bleeker and West Broadway, she had a cup like this, right, full to the top, and her pocket, and counting a whole bunch of money, and singles and all that, and I said "How you make all that money?" She said, "Going by the bank." I said what, yeah? So I started hitting banks.

When I went down here, I made forty dollars in less than an hour's time. Yeah, banks are cool. 'Cause if you're out on the sidewalk, you're not going to be doing too good. See this way, you open the door for people and whatnot and you know, and present your situation to them. Like I said, if they're going to help you, they're going to help you.

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PRIM:

So any time anyone comes in here, people have came in here and given me money and go inside the bank and tell people they don't like what I'm doing, and they'll chase me away. They let me do this here, but they tell me to go if somebody complains. And I'll do it, you know. But I understand why people don't want somebody in the ATM, I know that people tired of every time they go in a bank somebody's asking for money.

Because this is at almost every bank—now banks have security guards all day and all night, but before they got this, every one of these banks, any bank you go to, there's somebody at the door. People don't like that so much, some people understand, you know, your downfall, and what you been through, and they give to you, even though they don't like it in the banks. And they don't complain. These people here let me stand right here during banking hours.

But if someone complains to them, they will ask me to leave, and I'll respect that and I'll go. Which is hardly, rarely, but nobody hardly has complained.

[To ATM customer] Sir, your card is in the machine. [He comes back and gets the card, but doesn't give her a donation.] If you leave it too long with the card in there, the machine sucks it in and eats it.

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NEEDCOM:

Do you think that someone on the subway or someone working at a bank would do better than someone just—

EASY:

The bank! The bank! You could make a living in the bank! You can! I know I have. And look clean! It was like that was my job, for real!