Food Delivery Workers, Overlooked in Life, Are Honored in Death

After the brass band packed up its devices, Sergio Solano and two different meals supply staff walked a white bicycle to an overpass inside view of the United Nations headquarters.

A fellow employee, or compañero, as they name one another which means “partner,” had died lower than two weeks earlier that September in one more bicycle wreck on the streets of Manhattan. Delivering meals has proved to be a lethal occupation for a lot of of them. Riding bikes in any respect hours, they get hit by automobiles and are at fixed danger of getting accidents and falling prey to crime.

The spray-painted bicycle paid homage to Félix Patricio Teófilo, a Mexican immigrant who, like them, made his residing pedaling to ship meals. They chained it to the metallic railing close to the intersection of forty seventh Street and First Avenue, the place he met his finish.

With that solemn march by the drizzle, Mr. Solano, 39, was adjourning a night of mourning, fulfilling what he has come to see as a mission: illuminating in dying lives that have been relegated to the shadows.

“We never thought we would be organizing vigils,” Mr. Solano mentioned. “That was never our objective.”

Just over three years in the past, Mr. Solano and family members who’re additionally supply staff began “El Diario de Los Deliveryboys en La Gran Manzana,” which interprets to “The Journal of the Deliveryboys in the Big Apple,” a Facebook web page with goals each sensible and informative.

The web page would act as an internet help community, an area to alert of bicycle thefts, site visitors accidents and discriminatory encounters reported by Spanish-speaking immigrants who courageous the city frenzy to fulfill a New Yorker’s takeout cravings.

Along the way in which, it will chronicle the job’s twists and turns.

Soon after the web page was up and working it turned clear to Mr. Solano that the undertaking would inform a much bigger story: Compañeros die repeatedly on the job.

More than 40 have died for the reason that web page went stay in late 2020, by Mr. Solano’s newest depend.

In Mr. Patricio’s case, he hit his head on a curb and not using a helmet in a solo crash.

Food supply staff have been for a quick interval celebrated in New York because the Covid-19 pandemic drove life indoors and their companies turned important.

Delivery apps provided viable revenue to those that had been laid off from their jobs or had their hours slashed, and for these whose immigration standing difficult acquiring authorities support.

As the pandemic lurched on, the hazards of the in-demand work turned evident. Activists fashioned unions and pushed for higher pay and protections, an effort that continued into 2023. Under stress, the town set the next minimal wage for app-based supply staff, beginning at about $18 per hour in October.

Still, the chance for a lot of staff has gone past wages. On the Deliveryboys web page, a stream of pictures bears the names and faces of the fallen.

Most of them are immigrants from Mexico or Guatemala who’re a part of an estimated cavalry of 65,000 meals supply staff in New York City.

The job has grow to be one of many deadliest.

A report by the town revealed in November 2022 mentioned that the fatality fee amongst meals supply staff who don’t use a automotive was 36 deaths per 100,000 thousand staff from January 2021 to June 2022. That fee surpassed that of staff in development (seven deaths per 100,000), which had traditionally been the deadliest business.

Funerals, vigils, dying anniversaries and requiems have been organized, fund-raised and digitally inscribed into the group’s reminiscence by the self-titled journal.

Many have died in site visitors accidents whereas on the job. Some of the deaths usually are not associated to work. Others, like Francisco Villalva, have been murdered.

In March 2021, an assailant who was after Mr. Villalva’s bicycle shot him at a park close to 108th Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan. Mr. Villalva, of Xalpatlahuac, Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico, was 29.

Two days later, the web page streamed stay video from the spot of the killing, calling for others to help the household. Relatives who appeared within the video spoke in each Spanish and Nahuatl, an Indigenous language spoken in elements of Mexico. (To date, the video has greater than 132,000 views.) They additionally known as for justice.

“Unfortunately, another compañero has lost his life doing this job,” César Solano, Mr. Solano’s nephew, and in addition a web page administrator, mentioned in Spanish, relating the news with a tv reporter’s cadence.

The Deliveryboys web page’s follower depend has surged from a whole bunch to 1000’s, affording the platform some mobilizing energy.

“For almost a month, we did protests,” Sergio Solano mentioned. “We did vigils upon vigils upon vigils. People would come offering to donate food or provide live music. Every day that we did something, a ton of people would come.”

Mr. Villalva’s dying had galvanized the group. Compañeros paused their supply apps to attend the occasions. A Catholic priest was introduced in to guide prayers. Family and associates organized for meals. Others picked up devices.

One group wrote Mr. Villalva his personal corrido, a Mexican folks ballad, telling of his journey in New York by its unnerving finish.

The killer, recognized as Douglas Young, was caught and finally convicted of homicide. In April, Mr. Young, a 41-year-old man from Queens, was sentenced to serve 41 years to life in state jail.

Since Mr. Villalva’s dying, the web page has helped be certain that every fallen compañero is given a remembrance — a follow that has grow to be virtually ritualistic, harking back to the farewells to law enforcement officials killed within the line of responsibility.

The family members bear the brunt of the organizing, Sergio Solano mentioned, however the web page, which is 51,000 followers robust, brings folks out.

At Mr. Patricio’s vigil, César Solano, 22, livestreamed the band’s truncated sidewalk efficiency. Police officers fielding a noise criticism gave them 10 minutes to play their tribute.

Under a makeshift cover, dozens unhusked pork tamales, sipped on atole de piña (a pineapple-flavored corn beverage) and slurped steamy pozole from flimsy foam bowls, abiding every aching word: a folksy interpretation of Chopin’s “Marche Funèbre” and conventional Mexican funeral songs resembling “Te vas ángel mío” (“You’re Leaving My Angel”).

Mr. Patricio’s sister, Jovita Patricio, buried her face on a buddy’s chest. A tear parted her reddened cheek. Behind her, the candlelight caressed her brother’s portrait, encircled by flowers. He was her solely relative in New York.

The video stream of the band’s efficiency drew 1000’s of views. One of the musicians, Edgar Cano, had at one level labored with Mr. Patricio at a restaurant, and so they each hailed from the identical space in Guerrero.

“We never know. Today or tomorrow, another friend can pass,” Mr. Cano mentioned in Spanish, his sombrero casting a shadow over his eyes.

Some discover the web page’s exhaustive posts invasive.

But Sergio Solano mentioned the web page’s focus and the tributes honor the fallen supply staff with “a proper final goodbye” and provides family members an opportunity to grieve from afar. “If they loved and adored him back home, we show that he was loved and adored here as well,” he mentioned in Spanish.

In some circumstances, the web page carries stay video of the arrival of a compañero’s physique of their pueblo. Mr. Villalva’s return, as an example, was proven in a livestream.

Last summer time, when Eduardo Valencia, 28, was killed in an accident whereas he was working, his story, too, turned the main target of the Deliveryboys web page.

Mr. Valencia had come to the town from Guerrero as a teen, mentioned his mom, Guadalupe Nepomuceno. His dream was to avoid wasting up sufficient to carve out a cushty residing in his hometown, she mentioned.

“He wanted to build his house, return to Mexico and never return to New York,” Ms. Nepomuceno mentioned in Spanish.

But Mr. Valencia’s homecoming can be inside a coffin.

Ms. Nepomuceno, who lives in New York City, couldn’t attend her son’s burial, casting her remaining goodbye from a small digital display greater than 2,000 miles away.

The efforts function recognition for people who find themselves usually neglected, Sergio Solano mentioned.

“In the eyes of society, they don’t exist,” he mentioned. “They start to exist when you start to give them visibility.”

As metropolis life regains its prepandemic rhythms, Mr. Solano added, meals supply staff have pale into the background.

Planting a “ghost bicycle,” as memorials for cyclists are recognized, on the spot of a compañero’s dying is a method to inform of deliveryboys’ contributions and the last word worth some pay.

With Mr. Patricio’s memorial secured, Mr. Solano and two compañeros donned helmets, mounted bicycles and crept towards the intersection. They appeared each methods for passing automobiles.

It was forty previous seven on a Monday night. Time to get to work.