Castro, 37, came to New York because people told him that it was beautiful here.
Ishmael intends to learn English, but can’t find the time to study.
One more year for Jose then he’ll go back home. After returning home, he may come back to the United States again.
George, 18, loves to play basketball on W. 145th Street.
Juan Carlos, 22, pays $100 a week for rent. “They are saying rent is now $125 a week.” He may go back to California soon.
These are the stories of uptown delivery men. Their world is one of plastic silverware and trapdoor basements, mountain bikes wrapped in thick chains and oblivious drivers. Slicing through the streets like knights of their culinary kingdoms, they bring hot sustenance to the doors of Northern Manhattanites, but fear making the return trip without a tip.
Most of the men work six 10- to 12-hour days a week. They earn as little as $70 a week. Whether your food is Dominican, Chinese, Italian, or Indian, odds are the person standing in your doorway is from Mexico. About 75 percent of the delivery men who bike mechanic Elvis Ortiz sees at Victor Bike Repair on Broadway and W. 174th Street are Mexican; two percent are Dominican and the rest Ecuadorian or El Salvadoran, according to Ortiz.
The rapid growth of the Mexican community in the city, a 15.8 percent increase from 2005 to 2006, was highlighted in a report last November by the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies of the City University of New York.
A large portion of the increase, 74 percent, were people migrating directly from Mexico. Oftentimes jobs like food delivery, which pay under the table, are the first employment stop for an undocumented migrant. This means the newest New Yorkers are introduced to the city on two wheels, swaying to the weight of a plastic bag.
It can be a difficult adjustment.
When the door opened during one delivery, a young white resident asked in loud, dramatically annunciated English, “How much is it?” The question only intimidated Ishmael more. With his head down, he shoved the bill into the buyer’s hand and mumbled in low tones something that sounded like, “Yes.”
Eugenio, 19, like Ishmael, said he can understand English but he can’t respond in the language.
Eugenio wants to learn English, but it’s expensive and after work there’s not much time to do more than sleep. He regrets not going to school back home in Haujuapan de Leon, Mexico. It was never an option as he worked the fields with his father planting corn and beans from the age of eight until he left for the United States at 16.
Riding a bicycle in New York can be like taking the “walk and turn” sobriety test through an NFL scrimmage line: The biker is never sure whether it’s more prudent to hug the edge of curbside parked cars to avoid the aggressive surges of motorists or to angle out into traffic in preparation for the inevitable doors that fling open from stationary cars. The warmer months mean a break from the elements for the delivery men, but the spring and summer seasons are also when the highest rates of bicycle crashes occur, according to a joint report from the city’s Health and Mental Hygiene, Parks and Recreation, Transportation, and Police departments.
Delivery men, because many don’t wear helmets, and work between the hours of 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. are at high risk of fatality or serious injury, according to the report.
But to Eugenio, who has a tiny scar on the bridge of his nose from when he fell on his face after an encounter with a car a year ago, there’s just as much risk working in the kitchen. Either you’re burned or cut or you’re hit by a car, he said.
Many of the uptown delivery men said they prefer the freedom of the open pavement – even if potholed – to being cooped up in a back kitchen. The money is slightly better when you factor in tips, they said. But a price comes with that freedom.
Eugenio was robbed at knife point by four men in an elevator, at W. 160th Street and Riverside Drive, in February. He reached the top floor of the building with four bags of food, only to realize that the address given didn’t exist. When he went back into the elevator he was met by the four men who robbed him once the doors closed. They took $40 in singles and then fled the elevator, forcing him to take a slow descent because all the floor buttons were pushed.
Dominoes, on Broadway in Inwood, has a policy that delivery men can carry no more than $20 in change at any time. Manager Saul Morales instituted the policy two years ago. He said that it has given the Dominoes delivery men a reputation on the street as not being worth robbing. A laminated sheet posted on the wall of the Inwood Dominoes lists a nearby housing complex on Tenth and Nagle Avenues that the riders are not supposed to deliver to because there had been so many robberies in the past. Anyone who orders from the banned buildings gets a free 20-ounce soda for walking to Dominoes to pick up their food.
Morales, 32, came up with the idea. Originally from Mexico City, he came to New York at age 15, like most of the delivery men he supervises, with the plan of only staying for a few years. His dream was to earn enough to buy a Volkswagen and go to university in Mexico to study computer science or languages. He arrived in New York at 5:00 p.m. the day before Valentine’s Day. The next day he was on the street selling flowers in the snow. He went on to sell ranges on the bridge to the Bronx, on W. 155th Street, until becoming a delivery man, first for a Dominican restaurant and then Dominoes for two years. He taught himself English at night and eventually became a customer representative. Now he’s a manager who’s been nominated three times for Manager of the Year in the U.S. Dominoes and is currently advocating for his citizenship. Morales has spent so many years trying to keep his mother afloat with monthly checks after his dad passed away in Mexico that now, he said, his plans have changed.
“I’ve been more than my half my life here,” he said. He calculated, “15 years in Mexico, 17 here. I don’t think I’m going back.”
Only first names were used because of concerns about the immigration status of those interviewed.
