After a long winter, spring has finally sprung in New York — flowers are in bloom, New Yorkers are picnicking in the parks — and outside of City Hall, a long-derelict newsstand has also found new life.
Delivery workers – who have long struggled to find a place to shelter from the elements, recharge their e-bikes and themselves — would finally receive on Tuesday a brand-new delivery worker hub, the first of its kind in the country.
“Today is a historic day for delivery workers, a beginning of a new era where the city recognizes our dignity and the value we bring,” said Gustavo Ajche, member leader of Workers’ Justice Project (WJP) and co-founder of Los Deliveristas Unidos. “I’m confident that this is going to be the first of many more.”
Located at 249 Broadway, right outside the gates of City Hall, the hub will be operated weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. by WJP staff. Delivery workers will have access to information on street safety and safe e-bike operation. The hub will also be staffed with experts to assist deliveristas with filing wage theft and app deactivation cases.
Outside the rear of the building, 40 battery charging lockers will provide 24/7 app-based access to safe e-bike charging. One of the charging lockers is named Gustavo, after Ajche, who was one of the key advocates in support of the hub.
The delivery worker hub has been a long time coming, dating back to the fall of 2020, when Sen. Chuck Schumer biked through Harlem alongside a dozen delivery workers, where he learned firsthand about some of the dangers they face on a daily basis.
In 2022, Schumer, in partnership with former Mayor Eric Adams, secured $1 million in federal funding to build three hubs in New York City. The City Hall location is the first to be finished — the other two were set to be built in the Bronx and the Upper West Side, but plans have stalled after facing community opposition. It’s not clear when the other two hubs will be built or what will happen to the remaining funds if they do not come to pass.
“This is the culmination of years of advocacy, planning, and fighting for funding to make this dream a reality,” said Schumer during a speech celebrating the hub. “The workers had nowhere to rest, no shelter from harsh weather; it was a grueling job. We saw a simple shelter that we hope to have many more of throughout the city, which would provide, at not a real expense, a relief to the people.”
With an estimated 80,000 delivery workers in New York City, there’s no way one single delivery hub would be able to serve the entire workforce. But April Hermes, deputy director of WJP, says that the hub is a monument to the movement delivery workers have built.
“This was literally built by the blood, sweat, and tears of delivery workers,” she told Documented. “This is the house that delivery workers built.”
