On a winter morning the East River at Astoria Park runs black beneath the Hell Gate arch, and the wind comes up the bank with nothing to slow it down. Eden Landscaping and Snow Removal is out in that wind — plowing, shoveling walks and stoops, spreading salt, breaking ice off the north-facing steps that stay frozen for weeks. Ditmars sidewalks are busy by six, so the schedule belongs to other people's mornings. Snow gets moved off the pavement rather than merely around it, and a path gets cut wide enough for two people and a stroller. By the time the sun clears the rooftops the block is already back to being itself.