From Milton J. Valencia of the Boston Globe:
"Panhandlers come and go, moving on to the next street corner or the next fix, but Robbie Felder has claimed his own block on Morton Street in Mattapan, by his account and others, for more than a decade.
With a calculated precision gleaned from years of experience, Felder weaves in between traffic at the Morton Street and Blue Hill Avenue intersection, timing his moves with red lights, traffic crunches, and U-turns.
Some believe he's an MIT professor who lost his mind, to others he lost his family in a car crash. In truth, Felder's story is not that outlandish. But still it seems everyone knows him, making him one of the most colorful panhandlers of the city.
"He's got love from everyone around here," said Nikitas Tsoukales, who runs the Virgin Credit office on Morton Street and who recalls seeing Felder while growing up in his father's doughnut shop next door. The aging panhandler looks the same, and moves the same even today, Tsoukales said.
"He's here every day, seven days a week," he said.
Afternoons, evenings, and nights, clad in soiled clothes and New Balance sneakers that are too big for him, Felder trudges up and down the intersection with a work ethic that rivals any daytime, more conventional laborer as he collects handouts from the thousands of motorists who pass by him, recognizing him as that guy always in the middle of traffic.
This is how Felder makes a living. He's survived blistering storms and economic plunges, and the looming recession will not deter him. All he needs is his winter jacket and a charitable donation.
"I can't complain," he says, "I've seen worse and I've been through worse."
It takes a certain discipline to panhandle. City officials estimate more than 6,000 people are homeless in Boston, and many are likely to hustle for a dollar. Some take odd jobs. A few will let handmade signs do their begging for them. Others claim street corners from East Boston to Roxbury and ask for handouts, car by car.
Few do it like Felder. At 50 years old, he is ragged but well spoken, polite but introverted. His fingernails are grungy, but his graying beard is well-groomed. He is slightly bent over as he shuffles his feet from car to car, his arms limp by his side.
"No one ever complains about Robbie; he's just a fixture," said Captain James M. Claiborne, who runs the Mattapan police station on Felder's block.
Panhandling is a protected form of speech, the Supreme Judicial Court has ruled, and police can only intervene if someone is acting aggressively. Officers have cracked down on panhandling and other forms of begging in more business-like areas.
In 2007, Mayor Thomas M. Menino had declared that some homeless had become "problems on the street," and police take seriously any complaints of panhandlers intimidating drivers."
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