The Pawnshop

Manny Fernandez: The gold hoop earrings were $250, more than a third of Michelle Maynard's rent. She bought them anyway, and treasured them, but wore them for only two months.

One rainy afternoon in April, she decided to give up the earrings to get something back, and took them to Jay Rosado. He examined them for a moment, then set them on a scale. Minutes later, Ms. Maynard was handed $80.

Mr. Rosado runs a pawnshop in the South Bronx. It is easy to think the worst about someone who walks into a New York City pawnshop, long supposed to be a den of thieves, addicts and the downtrodden, and the swindlers who take advantage of them. But the New Yorkers who frequent pawnshops often want something as legitimate as it is simple: quick cash to help get by.

Ms. Maynard, 44, used the $80 to buy groceries, a MetroCard to get to and from work on the subway, and a dinner of pizza for her three sons. She needed the money because she had given her father all she had — she makes $19 an hour as a social worker — to let him take the boys to Walt Disney World. She covered some of the expenses; her father paid the rest.

The boys — 13, 11 and 9 — had no idea that they would soon be headed to Disney World. They also had no idea that their mother had pawned some of her favorite jewelry to enable them to go.