The most dapper newspaper salesman you will ever see

NEW YORK: It is possible to mistake photographs of Steeve Mackaya published recently in the New York Times as a fashion photo-shoot. He has been described by the photographer who has chronicled him attired in his many boldly coloured suits ‘like a piece of New York street art, totally unbelievable and amazing.”

Mackaya, 30, can be found in Chelsea every morning dressed in one of his colourful suits sitting atop his wheelchair with three stacks of newspapers and milk crates.

He arrived from Gabon on the west coast of Africa in 2013 as part of a United Nations youth delegation and applied for asylum. Upon failing he started living in a homeless shelter and began selling newspapers on a corner in Chelsea.

The photographer Moshe Katvan who befriended Mackaya and learned about him over time, told the New York Times he can’t store his suits at the homeless shelter and instead stores them at a friend’s place nearby.

Crippled by Polio in childhood Mackaya’s spirit proves that disability cannot dampen one’s dignity or resourcefulness.