{"id":296494,"date":"2026-07-15T12:30:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/296494\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T12:30:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:30:51","slug":"kings-queens-a-history-and-a-look-to-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/296494\/","title":{"rendered":"Kings & Queens: A History and a Look to the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

View Post(opens in a new tab)<\/a><\/p>\n

HELLO, kings and queens. My name is Shawn L.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

No matter where I\u2019m at, I refer to people I meet as \u201cKing\u201d or \u201cQueen.\u201d It started when I was in prison. In prison some will go against you, but some will go along with you. It didn\u2019t matter who you were, I was gonna call you king or queen. I was known as Mr. King and Queen in prison because of that. After 10 years of being in prison, my counselor asked me if I was getting out any time soon. I was like, \u201cno, I guess I gotta do the whole 20.\u201d He told me I was getting out in five years. When I learned that, I was excited, but I was also nervous. I knew I had to start figuring out what I was going to do when I got out. I didn\u2019t know where or how to start, but I wanted to do a business called Kings and Queens. It was far away at the time, but I knew I would need to get a certain amount of money together to start my business.<\/p>\n

As my release date approached, my business plan turned into t-shirts and hats with \u201cKings & Queens\u201d on it. But, when I got out, I ended up being homeless because my mother wasn\u2019t at the house we used to live in and nobody could tell me where she was because everybody in our neighborhood that I knew had moved. I didn\u2019t find my mother until like two years later. She was like, when did you get out? I was like, oh I just got out today. I didn\u2019t want her to worry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So, here I am, out of prison after 15 years and trying to figure how to get back on my feet. After a year of being out, I ran into a Contributor vendor named Josh and he told me about the paper. I came to my first Contributor paper release meeting in 2009 back when we had them in the big sanctuary and I had a lot of fun. I met the staff there and they got me started selling the paper and also helped me get together documents I needed for housing and other services.<\/p>\n

After selling the paper for about a year, I knew that I wanted to do something different on my corner. It was around Christmas of 2010 and I decided to dress up on my corner. At that time there was a costume shop called Performance Studios on Thompson Lane. I went there and they suggested Santa costumes, but I wanted something different. When they suggested reindeer, I said ohhh! At that time I was a big dude so I was worried they wouldn\u2019t have my size, but they did. So, I bought some lights to display on the wall near my spot and I rented the costume, and the nose lit up and everybody just loved it. That\u2019s how it started and by February I did Cupid (no diaper because it was too cold!). I wore all white and rented angel wings and a big bow and arrow. I couldn\u2019t afford the halo though. Then I went down there again for an Easter Bunny Costume. I tried scary costumes for Halloween, but after I scared two kids, I had to take it off. The next day I came up with something playful instead of menacing. About a month later I was a Thanksgiving Turkey and then I always stayed Rudolph for Christmas.<\/p>\n

My customers loved the costumes, and I wanted to have my own costumes instead of having to rent them. The woman at the costume shop even started to make me a few, but the store closed and she moved and we ended up losing touch. This year, I found an Easter Bunny costume at this balloon place out on Charlotte. I was able to buy this one, and now I\u2019m in search of people who make costumes. I\u2019ve a lot of ideas for costumes if I can find someone who can create them!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also working on new designs and getting setup with equipment in my house so I can make the shirts and hats myself. My new products will have a royalty style with crowns, swords, knights, jester hats and checkered diamond patterns. I\u2019m working with TKO to get some graphics together.<\/p>\n

As far as The Contributor goes, it saved my life when I first started. It gave me a job and it\u2019s just wonderful. I wouldn\u2019t want to stop doing it. This is one job that I stuck with and I don\u2019t think I would ever leave. I did it while I was homeless, I did it when when I was living in my first place, I did it during COVID, and I did it while I had other jobs at the same time. It\u2019s just wonderful. It\u2019s like family.<\/p>\n

Being out there with my customers is wonderful. You don\u2019t get cheers from everybody, but that\u2019s just part of selling the paper. I\u2019ve been flipped off, had water or whatever else thrown at me, I\u2019ve been called the n word. Those are the bad parts and the things you put up with. But the good outweighs the bad. Selling The Contributor lets me know I can pay my bills, It lets me know I can move forward in life. It\u2019s like no other job. I\u2019m independent and can make my own decisions. The Contributor gives you life, it gives you meaning and it gives you love.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"View Post(opens in a new tab) HELLO, kings and queens. My name is Shawn L. No matter where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-296494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}