{{short description|English businessman}} {{EngvarB|date=November 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}} {{Infobox person |name = Joe Ades|image = Joe Ades - Union Square, NYC - Aug 8 2005.jpg |caption = Joe Ades in Union Square, 8 Aug 2005 |death_place = New York City, United States |birth_place = Manchester, England<ref name="TelgObitB">{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/4540526/Joe-Ades.html|title=Joe Ades|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=6 February 2009|accessdate=12 December 2010}}</ref> |death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2009|02|01|1933|12|18}} |occupation = Merchant |citizenship = UK |birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1933|12|18}} | children = 3 }}
'''Joseph H. Ades''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɑː|d|ɛ|s}}; 18 December 1933 – 1 February 2009), also known as the "'''Gentleman Peeler'''", was a well-known British street merchant, long-based in New York City. He died one day after being notified his petition for US citizenship had been granted but before he could be naturalized.<ref name=TelgObit/>
==Early life== Joseph Ades, the youngest of seven children, was born to a Jewish family in Manchester, England, where his father worked in the textile industry. Leaving school at 15, he became an office boy before becoming intrigued by the local markets springing up in the World War II–devastated landscapes of Northern England. He started out hawking comic books before selling textiles, jewellery, and toys directly on the streets.<ref name=TelgObit/>
==Australia== In 1956, he married Shirley Unger,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=RXNsmUmVnjVUHxxXEdNlIg&scan=1|title=Index entry|accessdate=4 June 2024|work=FreeBMD|publisher=ONS}}</ref> with whom he eventually had three children. The family moved to Australia in 1969 as Ten Pound Poms and settled in Sydney, where Ades tried to set up markets in the parking lots of drive-in movies. Eventually he sold goods at street fairs off of the back of a large truck.<ref name=NYTObit/> After his first marriage was dissolved in 1980, Ades remarried and divorced again.<ref name=TelgObit>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/4540526/Joe-Ades.html|title=Joe Ades|publisher=Daily Telegraph|date=6 February 2009|accessdate=2010-12-12}}</ref>
==New York City== His third wife gave him a copy of ''London Labour and the London Poor'' by Henry Mayhew, a contemporary of Charles Dickens. The book recorded the activities of the street sellers of the Victorian period. Ades modelled himself on sellers that Mayhew called "the patterers", most of whom liked to ape the dress and mannerisms of gentlemen.<ref name=TelgObit/>
After the break-up of his third marriage and a period of residence in Ireland, Ades followed his daughter to New York City,<ref name=NYTObit/> taking up residence in Manhattan.<ref name=TelgObit/> From 1993 onward, Ades sold $5 Swiss-made metal potato peelers.<ref name="villager">{{cite web|url=http://thevillager.com/villager_264/heservesuppotato.html|title=He serves up potato peelers with a slice of style|last=Bloomgarden-Smoke |first=Kara|volume=77 |number= 51 |date=21–27 May 2008 |accessdate=3 February 2009}}</ref> His engaging sales patter and his $1,000 Chester Barrie suits and shirts from Turnbull & Asser<ref name="TelgObit" /> made him a well-known character on his regular demo circuit, which included places such as the Union Square Greenmarket. Ades never obtained a license, meaning that he was often asked to move by the New York City Police Department.<ref name=TelgObit/> His iconoclastic pitches and lifestyle eventually brought him attention and notoriety, and he was the subject of a ''Vanity Fair'' article.<ref name="vf">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/05/grafter200605|title=The Gentleman Grafter|last=Kaplan|first=Howard|date=May 2006|magazine=Vanity Fair|accessdate=3 February 2009}}</ref>
Ades enjoyed café society at the Pierre Hotel, on the Upper East Side, and lived with his fourth wife, Estelle Pascoe,<ref name="pascoeobit">{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9406EEDE173AF93BA25752C1A9619C8B63|title=Estelle Pascoe Obituary|work=The New York Times|accessdate=3 February 2009 | date=18 November 2007}}</ref> in her three-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue. She died in 2007.<ref name="today">{{cite web|url=http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26976442/ns/today-today_people/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100405225806/http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26976442/ns/today-today_people|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 April 2010|title=Joe Ades|publisher=MSNBC|date=2 October 2008|accessdate=12 December 2010}}</ref>
Ades died on 1 February 2009,<ref name=NYTObit>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/nyregion/03ades.html|title=His Stage, the Street; His Rapier, a Peeler|work=The New York Times|date=2 February 2009|accessdate=12 December 2010}}</ref> aged 75, reportedly only one day after being informed that his petition for naturalization as a United States citizen had been approved. However, he did not live to be sworn in.<ref name=TelgObit/>
==Legacy== Ades was survived by his daughter and two sons from his first marriage. His daughter, Ruth Ades-Laurent, began selling the peelers in the same spots as her father, but was later forbidden from selling in Union Square.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nypress.com/blog-4028-ades-subtraction.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20110606194930/http://www.nypress.com/blog-4028-ades-subtraction.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-06-06 |title=Ades' Subtraction |date=4 May 2009 |accessdate=19 May 2009 }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUVdGv0f4iw A-Peeling To The Masses] – New York Post video article on Joe Ades * [https://web.archive.org/web/20101024225139/http://www.noob.us/miscellaneous/joe-ades-the-greatest-salesman-ever/ Impromptu video of Joe Ades] (circa November 2008) * [http://blog.flickr.net/en/2009/02/04/rip-joe-ades/ RIP Joe Ades] – Photos of Joe Ades
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ades, Joe}} Category:1933 births Category:2009 deaths Category:English emigrants to Australia Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:Performance art in New York City Category:Businesspeople from Manchester Category:Businesspeople from Manhattan Category:People from the Upper East Side Category:20th-century English businesspeople