35-cent bananas

I used to cite the possibility of getting a banana at just about every third street corner with only the odd quarter that happens to be lurking in my pocket as one of the happiest conveniences of living in nyc. But a few months ago when I handed my lint-coated quarter over to the fruit vendor nearest my office, I got an alarming surprise: "Thirty-five cents, please."

I rummaged around my purse for a dime wondering where this guy got off thinking his bananas were worth ten cents more than everyone else's. But as weeks passed I began to notice that all the fruit carts in the general vicinity of my office were selling 35-cent bananas! Granted, I live in el barrio, where fruit carts, like most civilized elements of New York life, are few and far between, so this ten-cent hike could be limited to ever-pricy midtown.

But I have to wonder: How did they coordinate this? Is there a fruit cart vendors' coalition of some sort that regulates fruit prices? If not, what's to keep the fruit cart guy down the street from undercutting your newly increased banana price to lure cheap New Yorkers (like me) away from your cart?

Everyone's favorite research tool did little to abate the mystery, though I did discover that banana prices in the U.S. are strikingly lower than they are in other non-banana-producing nations, that residents of Santa Barbara probably consider banana prices a dull topic because theirs cost only 19 cents apiece, that "comparing per pound price to per banana price is like comparing apples to oranges (or to bananas)" [previous link], and that Aussie banana fiends should fear for their pocketbooks.