Windshield washer gives car a good swipe on Sunday - a sight seldom seen since 1990s. Squeegee men, the aggressive panhandlers who wash your car windows whether you want them to or not, are back.
Armed with buckets and $5 squeegees, a squad of men waded into stalled Times Square traffic Sunday to lather up windshields, swipe them clean and beckon for tips from drivers - some annoyed by the intrusion.
A rare sight when the country's unemployment rate was a mere 5.7%, the reappearance of the crews is an in-your-windshield reminder of 9%-plus unemployment and the highest rate of poverty in 27 years.
For some, they're a powerful symbol that the busted economy is bringing back the bad old days.
"I'm walking and I see a man cleaning a car window. It took me back in time. I had to do a double take to make sure I was seeing right," said Reggie Thomas, 44.
The Daily News spotted a crew of five squeegee men at 42nd St. and Ninth Ave. Sunday, swarming cars like it was the late 1980s all over again.
"As a driver, I feel obligated," said Terry Harris, 56, of the upper West Side, whose car the men approached. "I say 'no' when they approach my car, but then you feel guilty. They are here because they need the money."
A member of the squeegee brigade, James, of Harlem, said desperate times call for desperate measures.
"We are out here making a living," said James, a father of three. "It's hard to get a job," he added as he hustled from car to car, accepting $1 to $2 for his work.
He said he was laid off from his most recent job in the produce department of a grocery store when his manager learned he had a felony rap for robbery stemming back to when "I was young and made mistakes."
Sheila, 38, said her husband was slinging a squeegee because it's better than selling drugs.
"I have uterus cancer. He's here because welfare and Medicaid don't cover everything," she said. "He doesn't come here every day. But he needs to get extra money."
She insisted her husband would prefer a steady job to a life that's just above street beggar.
"The city isn't doing anything to help these men get jobs," Sheila said. "The city chases them away and harasses them instead of helping them get work. We got no other place to go but here, making money out in the streets."
Back in the early 1990s, the city's unemployment rate topped 13%, and the number of squeegee men ballooned into a symbol of New York's moral decay.
After taking office in 1994, Mayor Rudy Giuliani targeted squeegee men, whose tactics, some said, bordered on extortion.
Nearly two decades later, squeegee men are still paying for the sins of their forerunners, said James.
"The cops come and they chase us," James said. "We run. They don't want us doing this. We are just trying to make a living and bringing food to our kids."
whutchinson@nydailynews.com