New York City, the city that never sleeps, is also an incredibly hard place to take a break — if your job is jetting across town on a bike delivering takeout and groceries. "As things stand, there isn't a designated place for us to rest while working," Antonio Solis, an app-based delivery worker from Veracruz, Mexico, who moved to New York City five years ago, said in an interview in Spanish. "A lot of workers live in Queens or the Bronx, and they have to go as far as Manhattan for work." Rather than ride the 10 or 20 miles home, they look for small pockets of shade in parks and plazas, or shell out for a coffee or sandwich to take advantage of eateries' indoor seating.
The challenge of finding an acceptable break area in a city full of concrete, skyscrapers, and traffic exists year round for the more than 60,000 delivery workers in New York City. But summer makes the problem even more urgent — and this summer has been particularly brutal. Oppressive heat arrived early in New York City — the first heat wave struck in mid-June, just days before the official start of summer. By mid-July, the city had had two more heat waves (defined by the National Weather Service as streaks of three or more days with temperatures at or above 90 degrees Fahrenheit), and had already seen as many days at or above 90 degrees F in 2024 as it normally does in an entire year. Spending long periods in this kind of punishing heat presents real health and safety risks for outdoor workers. But delivery workers are getting organized — in ways large and small — to keep themselves safe in the heat.
