ALL PHOTOS: Diego Graglia 

t's the end of the workday. Thousands of commuters emerge from subway tunnels and busy Midtown streets, stampede through the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and depart Manhattan. A few hours later, platforms where 30 or more people lined up to board buses are now deserted, except for janitors, homeless people, and a few sleepy passengers.

"Everything slows down, just like the rest of New York," said George Reyes, 43, who as general operations supervisor is the eyes and ears of the terminal. Reyes said that while there are around 200 employees in the daytime, less than 70 work the overnight shift.

Inside the operations control center, an elevated booth with over 60 screens monitoring every corner of the buildings, one can see the quiet corridors. A janitor mops the floor. Thirty feet away, another worker empties trash cans. They work with their heads down, oblivious to their surroundings.

Tonja Turner-Roberts, 36, one of three agents who rotate two-hour shifts inside the control booth, acknowledged that nights can be boring. Asked if the shift has side effects, she said, laughing, "Besides the crankiness, the non-sleeping, the irritability?"

Is the bus ever coming?

Turner-Roberts said she stays busy by solving crossword puzzles, reading the newspapers or walking around the booth to kill time. None of the screens, she pointed out jokingly, could be switched to TV channels.

iped-in classical music and the hum of the floor buffers are the only sounds filling the hallways.

One of the few people on the main concourse is Mohamed Azizul Islam. At 53, this Bangladeshi immigrant arrives from Queens at 10.30 p.m. to work for Hudson News, a newsstand franchise, until 7 a.m.

Islam spends four or five hours slicing unsold newspapers, and during the rest of his shift he distributes the morning editions to 12 stores throughout the terminal.

Despite his drooping eyelids and monotone voice, Islam said he never gets bored. "I have no problems, I don't feel sleepy," he said, "If I don't sleep in the daytime, then I have problems."

Below the terminal, inside the 42nd Street subway station, Daryl Glover, 39, a construction worker, said he does not feel sleepy either. "I work on the tracks," he said, "The trains keep me awake."

"When I first started at night," Glover said, "around 1 a.m. my body would get tired." But after nine years working the night shift, he has adjusted to the nocturnal schedule. Around 7 a.m., he returns home to Coney Island and gets his daughter ready for school. "After she takes the bus, I can sleep," Glover said.

Source:  Port Authority web site

ot everyone is as well-adapted.

Tamer Mohsen, 28, a cab driver soliciting passengers outside the terminal, said, "I don't feel normal at all. Sometimes, I totally loose my concentration."

To stay awake during his 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift, Mohsen said, he calls his wife on a cell phone, talks to passengers, or listens to the radio. Mohsen, a graduate student at City College, said, "12 hours is a lot of hours."

At the Eighth Avenue entrance where Mohsen and other drivers waited in the cold, police officers closed the terminal's doors. Only ticket-holding passengers could go beyond the metal barriers after 1 a.m. A homeless man who had just been removed from the terminal tried --unsuccessfully-- to persuade the guards to let him in.

Back at the control center, the screens showed nothing but empty escalators and shiny floors. Thousands of commuters were home. It was another typical night at the bus terminal.

Before going back into the booth, Tonja Turner-Roberts said with a sigh, "Nights are just a different world."