SOUTH BRONX — The recent deluge of snow and ice has caused many New Yorkers to flee indoors, but a handful of workers in borough have no choice but to stay outside.
Carlos Calderon, 30, works for Liberty Tax Service and spent Monday outdoors by The Hub handing out promotional materials for the company.
He regularly dons a Statue of Liberty costume for his job but also put on several extra layers to help him keep warm, although the strategy was not a complete success.
“I got two pairs of socks; I got two jeans on; I got long johns; I got a t-shirt, a shirt, a sweater and a jacket,” he said. “I got gloves; I got a mask; I got a hat. And it’s still cold with all that.”
Darnel Patterson has been handing out flyers by The Hub this winter as well for two local furniture stores and an electronics store.
The job gets tougher during cold weather because most people are looking to go indoors as soon as they can rather than stop to grab a flyer on their way.
"They're just trying to hurry up and get inside, get warm, stay warm," he said.
Lee Gomez and Marcos Basabe, who also hand out flyers for an electronics store by the Hub, agreed that pedestrians could get fairly rude during the winter, to the point where they will occasionally spit on them.
"Sometimes people just grab the flyer and throw it back at you," Gomez said. "'Oh, I don't want that. Oh, it's too cold for this.'"
Sonia Rodriguez, who takes order for a food truck right outside the BankNote Building in Hunts Point, was very blunt about how it felt to work in the cold.
"It sucks," she said.
However, being in the food industry can have its advantages during winter, as Rodriguez said the truck's preparation items help the workers stay warm.
"We have the grill, and I have my little heater, and then we have the coffee urn," she said. "Plus, we've got a lot of TLC."
To help cut down on the length of time customers will have to spend waiting outside, several have started texting Rodriguez to give her their order in advance, and she will then text them back when it is ready. The strategy has been very popular so far, she said.
"I had people text me at 6 this morning at home," Rodriguez said. "I'm not even here yet, and they text me."
Officer Erica Bukowiecki has spent her winter on a walking beat in the 42nd Precinct and said one of the toughest parts of the job has been trying to respond to calls quickly on foot without slipping and falling on ice.
For instance, when officers called for backup while trying to break up a large neighborhood party last week, Bukowiecki headed to the scene carefully so she could avoid falling victim to black ice on the way and thus did not arrive until things had calmed down.
"I felt like we kind of missed out on the action," she said. "By the time we got there, it was already taken care of."
However, she said she did not mind the cold overall and that it could actually be preferable to the summer heat, which she described as impossible to escape.
Patterson said he does not mind his outdoor job either, despite the spate of rough weather.
"I like working and making money," he said. "You've got to have money to have honeys, you know?"
