Snow reaches Jackson Heights quietly, because the elevated line over Roosevelt Avenue takes the noise out of everything beneath it. By mid-morning the garden-apartment courtyards off 82nd Street are the softest thing in the borough and the sidewalks are the most treacherous. Snow Removal Services Queens takes the walks and the interior paths first, shoveling them down to the pavers and salting the shaded stretches between buildings where ice likes to settle in for days. Driveways, entrances, curb cuts and sloped aprons come next, and the piles go where they will not block a hydrant or a crossing. A courtyard path that is bare and dry by lunchtime is a small thing a lot of people are grateful for.