Kathleen Sullivan, a retired public school teacher in Jackson Heights, told the Eagle that, as a former educator, she thought the retro snow day call was the right one to make.
“I’m happy for my friends still working who get a day off,” Sullivan said. “I’m happy for the kids too.”
Sullivan walked around her neighborhood Monday morning after unsuccessfully trying to get some of her neighbors to join her.
She praised the city’s response to the storm but said she felt sidewalks and street crossings needed to be shoveled at a faster clip. In the past, students freed from school would perform the service. That was no longer the case, she said.
“I do wish that more residents would take a stand and just shovel,” Sullivan said. “When I grew up here, there were more kids walking around with shovels. I don’t know if parents won’t allow them to do that, or if they just don’t think about it. But [kids] can make a couple extra bucks, go knock on somebody’s door and say ‘I’ll shovel for you.’”
Pedestrian crossings were cleared quickly along Steinway Street in Astoria, where Youssouph Houma shoveled the sidewalk for the Steinway Astoria Partnership, the local business improvement district.
Houma said he had been performing the difficult task for the BID for four years. He’s been particularly busy this winter, which has seen measurable snow multiple times since the start of December, not to mention the two major storms that slammed the city this month.
He began shoveling around 8 a.m. and planned to make his way south down Steinway Street throughout the day.
“I like the job,” Houma said.
As Houma was speaking with the Eagle, Pajazit Hot, Houma’s boss and the owner of the contracting company that works with the BID, pulled up to the corner in a pickup truck to deliver his employee some food.