The NY Times picks up on the tragic story of the blind newsstand operator who fell to her death on the tracks at Croton-Harmon yesterday.

“It was a routine that Theresa Fiorentino followed for as long as anyone could remember.” writes Fernanda Santos. “Seven, perhaps eight steps from the newsstand to the elevator, a downward ride of about five seconds, and a minute or so smoking a cigarette along one of the concrete platforms at the Croton-Harmon train station…”

Ms. Fiorentino’s daughter Nance Cohen said yesterday’s routine was different for her mother, because of an elevator that was out of service.  

“Ms. Cohen said she rushed to the top of the stairs that link the station to the platform, and then rushed back to the stand, looking for her mother. Hearing commuters screaming on the platform below, she began to weep. ”

“Somehow, I knew she was gone,” Ms. Cohen, 49, said in an interview at her mother’s modest ranch house here, less than a mile from the train station.

The story says Ms. Fiorentino operated the newsstand for 40 years, rising at 3 each morning to report to work. So adept was she that her regular customers didn’t even realize she was blind.