The first flakes of a New York winter usually show up at dusk over the Hudson, blowing sideways past the piers before anything sticks. U.S. Snow Services takes it from there — plowing lots and drives, shoveling walks and steps, spreading salt across the city through the long middle of the season. River wind heaps snow along one side of everything and strips the other bare, so no two clearings come out quite the same. The work is planned backwards from morning: decide when people need to walk, then be finished an hour before that. Coffee at four, headlights on wet blacktop, done while the city is still asleep.