A Sense of Comfort in Hoboken as the U.P.S. Man Makes His Rounds

Joshua Bright for The New York Times Danny Vignola has delivered packages in Hoboken, N.J., for U.P.S. for 25 years.

Their New Jersey city had been steamrollered by Hurricane Sandy, forcing a major evacuation from waterlogged homes. They went days without power and heat and basic necessities like food and water. So as the people of Hoboken struggle to recover, some beleaguered residents have taken solace at the sight of a man in a brown suit carrying boxes.

Danny Vignola, who has squeezed a boxy United Parcel Service truck through Hoboken's skinny, crowded streets for a quarter of a century, returned to his delivery route on Friday, four days afte r Hurricane Sandy hit, and delivered more than just packages. His presence was a sign that life was returning to normal.

“Before Hoboken had power, we had Danny; it was awesome to see,” said Wendy Oswald Kinney, who passed him on the street on Wednesday.

Mr. Vignola pushed his dolly, stacked high with cardboard boxes, past Red Cross vehicles, municipal Office of Emergency Management vehicles, and National Guard members working outside City Hall to pump water from a nearby basement.

“She has to be the worst that we've seen,” Mr. Vignola, 47, said of the storm.

He delivered prescriptions to an eyeglass store, a box from diapers.com to a private residence, shoes to a shoe store and canned goods to groceries. Pumping his elbows as he walked, head tucked down against the sleet from the northeaster bearing down on the region, the gregarious Mr. Vignola asked people along his route how they had fared in the hurricane.

Sarah Sheldon, a financial consultant who is due to give birth in 10 days, told him that she was “safe, but the power's been out for a week.”

On Washington Street, Maria Costa, an accountant, hollered that she was “fine at home, but it's cold.”

Dan DeCongelio, owner of Stan's Sports Center, simply broke into a chorus of a traditional Irish song when he spotted Mr. Vignola carting a box his way. “Oh Danny boy,” he sang out.

When Mr. Vignola asked Victoria Maarleveld how she was doing, she replied that she was trying.

“I'm hanging in there,” said Ms. Maarleveld, who has known Mr. Vignola for 25 years. “It sure made me happy to see you back.”

A generation ago, Mr. Vignola said, he saw a lot more “stoop sitting” around Hoboken. A stoop-sitter, he said, is someone who perches on the front steps of buildings, has an easy time talking to people and constantly checks to see how the neighbors are making out.

In recent years, he has watched giant apartment complexes rise up in Hoboken, the town where he was born, and the old stoop-sitting culture has all but vanished. He said it had been memorable delivering packages to a few of the town's famous residents, like the Giants quarterback Eli Manning and former Gov. Jon S. Corzine. He also noted that his cousin held the deed to property on Monroe Street that was once owned by Frank Sinatra, which gives him a connection to Hoboken royalty.

If that wasn't enough, he is also related by marriage to Maddalena Castano, manager at Carlo's Bake Shop, which is featured in a reality show, “Cake Boss.”

“We're O.K.,” Ms. Castano told him as he dropped off a package. “We lost power for a week, but in comparison to other people, I consider myself very lucky.”

Other U.P.S. drivers have begged off the Hoboken route. The roads are too narrow. There is too much walking. Finding a space big enough to fit a U.P.S. truck is a challe nge. But Mr. Vignola said he had stuck with the town because his customers are his community, and for them he is a stoop-sitter behind the wheel of a boxy, brown truck.

“I go to work, I ask how people are, and there's people thanking me,” he said. “I'm like, ‘Are you kidding?' I'm just doing my job.”