When your name is Dan, you get a lot of nicknames.

Growing up in Harlem, Daniel Day heard his fair share of them.

Sometimes I go back to my old neighborhood on the east side

where everybody calls me the anyboy.

But the sober K that would stick,

the one most people would come to know was Dapper Dan.

Because from a young age, he liked to look good.

Clothes was a transformative thing.

If you got dressed, you got really dressed up and you went downtown,

nobody knew you came from the boys, they didn't follow.

That's what made a difference.

People of color when you dress,

that has an equalizing effect on how you feel.

Especially if you can dress better in the white kids that you see.

Dapper Dan's life took a lot of crazy turns,

including, but not limited to,

years of running street bets and dice games,

a ring of credit card fraud, an arrest in Aruba,

time in prison.

He was a hustler and a gambler for decades.

But what he's best known for is what he did after all that.

When he decided to get away from his life of crime, sort of.

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