BY ANTHONY O’REILLY
Baby it’s cold outside.
With temperatures expected to stay below freezing, and wind chill factors making it feel even colder over the next week, Queens residents are bundling up to protect themselves from the frigid temperatures.
Richard Schaffer, 51, of Bayside, volunteers to do yard work for the Lutheran Redeemer Church on Bell Boulevard. Schaffer says the only outdoor work he does during the winter months is to change the outside sign of the church, but even that is challenging with the cold.
“Unfortunately, you can’t change letters while wearing gloves,” he said.
Schaffer’s strategy for staying warm during the cold months, he says, is to avoid confronting it.
“I try to go outside as little as possible.”
Schaffer also said he had just come back from London, where there was snow and temperatures of about 30 degrees. He said that although there was snow in the UK, he’d prefer the weather from across the pond over the temperatures here.
“We didn’t know how good we had it over there.”
Lyle Sclair, executive director of the Bayside Village Business Improvement District (BID), said during cold stretches, the employees who are outside sweeping the streets are provided with “weather appropriate clothes.”
“We provide them with a full body suit that goes over their regular uniform,” he said. “That’s because we value their service.”
A BID worker sweeping the streets of Bell Boulevard also wore an insulated face mask to keep his face warm while working outside.
When asked if employees had ever complained about working during the colder days, he said he wasn’t aware of any such instances happening.
Forecasts predict a light accumulation of snow for Friday, Jan. 25 and a mix of snow and rain for Tuesday, Jan. 29.
Despite this, Sclair says that BID workers will still be outside working if necessary.
