Her name is Theresa

When you exit a NYC subway station, most of the time you'll take the stairs directly to the street. But sometimes there are stairways that lead you directly into a building. For example, if you take the #2 or #3 train (the 7th Avenue IRT) to the Wall Street station, you can  walk directly from the train station into 28 Liberty Street a/k/a One Chase Manhattan Plaza (still the home of J.P. Morgan/Chase), or you can take the escalator into the lobby/atrium at 60 Wall Street (current home of Deutsche Bank).

I take the escalator to the atrium, then exit onto Pine Street and walk to my office.

I noticed her back in September.  A hawker, she was handing out copies of the free newspaper, AMNewYork.  I'd see her every morning as I was leaving the subway station; her post was in  the hallway in front of the escalator.

A few weeks ago I overheard a conversation between a mom and a very young daughter.  the daughter was excited to "give the card to Theresa".  She handed the card to the newspaper hawker.

Theresa wasn't the only one in that hallway.  Sometimes I'd see a hawker handing out take-out menus for a local restaurant.  Another hawker would hand out postcards advertising a massage company. In the evening I would sometimes see musicians performing in that hallway.

Someone told me that Theresa used to work in a bank, that she lost her job during a round of layoffs, and that handing out free newspapers was the only job she could find.

Theresa would talk with the subway riders as they left the station.  She always said "good morning" to everyone, talked about the stories in her newspapers, the weather, etc.

In mid September she announced that it was her birthday, that she was turning 48.She looks much older than that.  I think she must have had a hard life.

One day during the winter, she couldn't stop talking about the pot roast her housemate was cooking for dinner that night. I guess she doesn't get pot roast very often.

But about a week ago, Theresa stopped hawking her papers in the hallway by the escalator.  Instead, she was on the Pine Street sidewalk, in front of the bank building, handing out papers to subway riders and pedestrians.

Apparently  the spot where she used to stand belongs to the bank building, not to the transit authority. One of the other hawkers left behind a big mess that the bank building had to clean up.  So now hawkers are banned from the bank building's tunnel. And the musicians are careful to stay in the area belonging to the transit authority.

Right now the weather is fine, and Theresa is standing under a sidewalk shed (apparent there's some construction planned at the building), so the rain won't be a factor.  But it gets very hot  around here in the summer, and brutally cold in the winter. She told me she plans to bring a cooler with ice water when the weather gets warmer.

I am so upset for Theresa, having to be outside in such weather.

I will have to make sure I take a copy of that free newspaper every morning.

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