Water Hill lives up to its name in winter, when the sidewalks on those pitched blocks become something you take carefully or not at all. SnoBlo LLC clears them — snow blowing and shoveling walks, steps and driveways, then salting the grade where a boot would otherwise slide out. In a city that expects its walks open, this is the work that lets a neighborhood keep functioning: the mail carrier, the kid headed to school, the neighbor with a cane. Storms here ride in on a northwest wind and pile against the porch side of a house, so getting in behind the drift is half the job. By breakfast the hill is walkable again and the day can start.