Meet Alex Goldberg. He’s a full-time hustler, part-time chef, all around cool kid, and at just 14 years old, he’s a already making his way to the top of NYC’s social ladder. A true “connector” (see: The Tipping Point) if I’ve ever seen one.

…Alex isn’t like other boys his age. He’s had free rein over the streets of Nolita since before he can remember, and he quickly learned the rules of that playground, turning his relationships with the neighborhood’s shop owners into access to free gourmet meals and designer clothes and trendy sneakers, then turning those freebies into even better stuff (like courtside Knicks tickets), and leveraging those perks into even more valuable things, like connections to athletes, rappers, nightclub owners, and so on.

On any given day after school, you can find him strutting down Elizabeth or Mulberry or Mott, past the foundations of his barter operation. He’s worked at Supreme, the clothing store and skate shop on Lafayette. He’s helped the chefs at Peasant. …After school for the last couple of years, Alex clocked in at his favorite job of all: at NikeID, the design-your-own-shoe mecca. He scored this gig by accident.

(read: NYT)