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By Anna-Kaisa Walker at NYU Livewire
Feb 24, 2004
Sometimes a New York City parking ticket can be a good thing. Just ask Angie Velasquez, a 23-year-old Texas ad salesperson turned New York City artist. Not long after spotting a telltale orange envelope stuck to the windshield of her car, she realized she had hit a gold mine.
“I was so fed up, I threw it on the street,” said the vivacious dark haired Brooklynite with a laugh.
Later that day, Velasquez was sitting in a café trying to think of an idea to jumpstart her new career path – T-shirt design. “Suddenly it hit me and I rushed back and started fishing around on the ground,” she said. “I had no doubt it would sell.”
Nine months later, Velasquez is supporting herself almost entirely by selling her parking ticket T-shirt, and the design helped get her into the prestigious Cooper Union School of Art with a full scholarship. The $15 shirt, available in various cuts and colors, features an actual size silk-screened image of a summons from the Department of Parking Violations. Every week, from Thursday through Sunday, Velasquez stands behind a table in front of 111 Prince St. in Soho selling the tees. She also sells them online at www.zeitgeistsoho.com.
Velasquez estimates she has sold at least 5,000 shirts since April, averaging 150 per week. During Christmas season, she took home almost $6,000 in a single weekend.
Velasquez’s design is not only popular on the street, it’s gaining some mainstream attention too. The tees have been featured in the New York Press’ 2003 Christmas guide, and members of the band OutKast bought four. “A customer told me they spotted someone at Yoko Ono’s art opening,” Velasquez said.
The most unlikely customers have bought the parking ticket tee. According to Velasquez, traffic court judges and data-entry clerks for the Department of Parking Violations have shopped at her table. “Even cops come up and tell me they get parking tickets too,” she said.
The mere sight of one of the unwelcome orange tickets is enough to make even the most seasoned New York driver cringe, and that’s part of the T-shirt’s appeal, Velasquez explained. “It’s such an anxiety-provoking image – it really makes a statement,” she said. “When people walk past my table, they never fail to react,” she said. “Everybody smiles.”
Velasquez buys the T-shirts wholesale from American Apparel, an sweatshop-free manufacturer with a store at 712 Broadway, and gets the silk-screening done by a printer in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. “I could charge a lot more, but my main advantage is that it’s hard to find American Apparel T-shirts for $15 in this city,” she said.
Velasquez plans to spend the summer expanding her T-shirt business, but she has a new plan for the fall. She submitted her parking ticket T-shirt design with her application to the Cooper Union School of Art, and was admitted with a four-year scholarship. The school receives 1,200 applications a year and selects only 65 students.
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