“Flower Lady” Sidewalk Biz Re-Blossoms

With a box of 250 roses and a few hundred other flowers, as well as an assortment of balloons, ​“flower lady” Annette Walton figured she was well-stocked for her grand reopening in front of Yale’s Humanities Quadrangle on York Street between Wall and Elm. 

Around an hour later, those hundreds of flowers were mostly gone. 

Walton, who’s been selling flowers since the 1990s around Yale’s downtown campus, re-set up shop on York Street last week after an almost three-year hiatus.

She saw her street-vending license expire during the pandemic when the university went remote starting in March 2020. A hardy band of Yale students and alumni jumped through hoops for her at City Hall and launched a university-wide GoFundMe campaign that raised $1,500 to help her business re-blossom.

The reason for the overwhelming response to the reopening, according to Yale School of Drama alumnus Arthur Nacht, was simple.

“She’s a wonderful person, a special woman,” said Nacht, as he stood on the sidewalk amid a hive of students buzzing around the ​“Flower Lady” on a picture-perfect Valentine’s Day; he met Walton in 2003 while a student at the drama school. ​“Plus she has a million friends.”

Among them is senior Adam Zhang, who returned with four boxes of 1,000 roses. 

“It was really a community effort,” he said, of the quest to help Walton restart her business.

A passing car honked. 

“How you doin’,” Walton called out. ​“Me? I’m here. I sold out. Can you believe that? Had to get more flowers.”

“You’re amazing, Annette,” said senior Katie Smith, a history major, who was standing nearby. She met Walton early on in her time at Yale. They hit it off. Every Wednesday, she, along with her friend Averil Walters, bring her coffee. ​“We sit on the wall and chat for a couple of hours,” Smith said. ​“Best part of my day.”

Emme Magliato, who organized the GoFundMe campaign with Zhang, had a similar take. 

“I met Annette during my first year and I felt really connected to her,” she said. ​“I had a hard time connecting on campus at Yale, coming from a lower-income background. I feel like every time I see Annette, it brings joy into my day.”

She watched another student ask for another five roses. 

“This is huge for her not just for today but also for the future,” she said. ​“When we set up the campaign, her husband had just passed away, and we wanted to make sure she felt supported and had community around her to help her get her license and keep her busy and engaged.”

Zhang, who met her in fall 2021, agreed. ​“I felt very connected to Annette, and I saw an opportunity to really help someone I cared about,” he said. ​“I think that pushed me. A big part of it is also my faith, to serve others like Jesus did.”

“Whew,” Walton, 63, was saying during a short lull. ​“From now on, it’s going to be simple, one bucket of flowers, real simple. Mondays, because their girlfriend or someone is mad at them, they’re going to need a flower, but not everyday. I’m old now. I’m too old. Back in the day, I’m flexible. I could move. Everything going to be sore tomorrow.”

“It’ll be a nice sore,” said Seraina Berger, who introduced herself as another of Miss Annette’s friends, along with her husband Andreas Berger, a post-doc at the Divinity School. 

“You good?” Walton asked her. ​“How’s your leg?”

“I’m good,” Berger said. ​“Glad you’re back.”

At that moment, Jennifer Klein, a professor of history, alighted from HQ, greeting Walton.

“She always asks about family,” she said. ​“She wants to know how your kids are doing. She really thinks about other people, and I think she sees herself as part of the Yale community, which I think she is.”

That familiarity might explain the outpouring of support in the effort to help Walton secure a license to sell her flowers.

Nacht, Zhang said, helped ​“work out the logistics of going to City Hall, filling out the forms, applying for licenses, going back and forth with the ward.” Others assisted in setting up a bank account, and with understanding regulations and other financial matters. 

“People kept coming forward,” he said, as the flower lady wrestled with the bouquet of balloons. 

“They’re not cooperating,” she said, finally freeing a heart-shaped one. 

“Keep the change,” said student Nick Aldana. 

“At a certain point we were very discouraged,” Zhang recalled. ​“The city was not letting her vend downtown and the weather was getting colder and colder. Annette was frustrated too.”

“You back again?” Walton was saying. ​“How many girlfriends you have?”

After ​“a lot of back and forth with City Hall and the local government,” as Zhang put it, the license came through in mid-January. They decided to wait until Valentine’s Day.

“That was Adam’s brilliant idea,” said Nacht. He looked at the queue of smiling faces. 

“This really warms my heart. She’s making a lot of people happy, it’s a gorgeous day, and you couldn’t ask for much more.”