4:43 a.m. — Hydraulics Check Out

In the red glow of brake lights, Tony Sanchez flipped a lever and examined the smooth action of his city truck’s trash compactor.

Better to test it at the garage than to get out on your route and find it’s broken, he said.

It was 4:43 a.m. and city trash hauler Sanchez was one of a dozen guys gathered at the transfer station off Middletown Avenue, getting ready to head out to collect trash.

Sanchez, who’s 43, wasn’t the first one to arrive. That honor belonged to Julio Perez, who goes to bed at 7 p.m. every night so he can leave his home in Bridgeport in time to be the first to arrive. ​“If I’m always early, I’ll never be late,” he said cheerfully.

Perez said he’s happy with his job. So did Felix Diaz (pictured), who even said he likes doing the heavy lifting behind the truck, rather than being the driver.

“It’s exercise,” said the 53-year-old. ​“When you get to my age you need it.”

Others weren’t so pleased with the profession. Two guys, who declined to give their names, said the job used to be a good one, and still can be, ​“if they leave us alone.”

The city keeps trying to give them more work, they said. The switch to larger Toters for recycling has made their job more difficult, they said. A lot of people don’t know how to use them; they fill the Toters with trash instead of recycling. Collectors have to inspect each Toter to make sure it is what it should be.

The trash collectors contract includes ​“incentive” pay, which means the workers can knock off as soon as they’re done with their routes, and still get paid for eight hours. Several workers said they’d be off as early as 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

That’s as it should be, said one worker. ​“You don’t want these trucks on the road longer,” he said. It’ll just lead to accidents.

“They’re trying to take it all away from us,” he said. ​“They put so much work on us.”

“The morale here sucks!” exclaimed another worker as he headed for his truck to start the day.

T.M.

4:50 a.m. — Frank Loads The Truck

After four years of pre-dawn bread deliveries from Apicella’s bakery, the smell of freshly baked Italian loaves no longer distracts Frank Cusano (pictured) from his appointed rounds.

“I get used to it, but it does smell good,” said the bread delivery man.

It was 10 minutes before the Grand Avenue bakery was due to open, at 5 a.m., and Cusano already had the first of two truckloads of Italian bread ready to go.

With a history going back to 1927, Tuesday was one of countless mornings where the smell of bread has filled the air at Apicella’s. In order to produce that distinctive smell, the bakery crew gets cracking well before the break of dawn, in the small hours of the morning.

Vinny Ragozzino (pictured), who was wrapping still-warm loaves, started work at 3:30 a.m.

Lenny Izzo (pictured), who has worked at the bakery since he was a kid in 1971, started at 3 a.m. He prepares the dough for the Italian bread and later sets to work on the danishes.

N.S.

2:51 a.m. — Word-Search Completed

After 15 years working overnights at Cody’s diner, Danielle Terrazzano knows her way around a New York Post word-search, and she’s developed a reputation as a waitress who keeps night-owls coming back.

Just before 3 a.m. Tuesday, Terrazzano (pictured) had completed the day’s puzzle, and was tallying up the bill from the one occupied booth in the Water Street diner. It was between rushes: after the bar crowd, and before the third-shifters get off work and come in for a meal.

Terrazzano has 15 years of experience with the rhythm of overnight shifts. She often works from 3 or 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. the following morning, she said. It’s boom and bust through the night at Cody’s, Terrazzano said. You rush around and ​“then it’s nobody.” She buys a New York Post every day to keep herself occupied during the lulls.

She pointed out the last of the bar goers, a booth at the end of the diner occupied by five women, old friends from New Haven and New York. They’ve been friends for 14 years, said Wanda Garcia, who sat on the end.

The remains of a meal of sandwiches, soup, eggs, and meat lay on the table. Garcia said they’d come from a bar in West Haven, where they’d celebrated Aralys Lora’s 40th birthday.

The reason they picked Cody’s for the afterparty?

“Because I like the girl,” Garcia said, pointing to Terrazzano. ​“Danielle is a lovely girl.”

T.M.

2:04 a.m. — ​“It’s Definitely Weed”

Officer Martin Feliciano stepped out of police headquarters to show off a tiny test tube, part of a drug analysis kit. It had turned purple. That means weed.

The purple proof came at 2:04 a.m., just over an hour after Officer Feliciano had stopped a guy in his 20s at the corner of Ferry and Pine for driving without a front plate. It turned out the man was wanted on a domestic assault.

Once he arrived at the detention center at police headquarters on Union Avenue, a search revealed an ​“interior pocket” with two little baggies inside. The substance in those baggies was marijuana, as the drug kit showed by turning purple.

The man will get a $150 fine for the drugs and will spend the night in jail pending a hearing on the domestic violence charge later Tuesday.

The 11 p.m.-7 a.m. shift is full of surprises, Feliciano said. Sometimes the night is quiet and he makes no arrests. Other nights he makes five or six, mostly for drug-related and motor vehicle offenses.

N.S.

1:42 a.m. — Cabbie Tempts Fate

The train station is the most dangerous place to pick up customers, said a 10-year veteran taxi driver.

Nevertheless, there he was, second in a line of cabs waiting outside Union Station after 1:30 a.m. There’s nowhere else to find fares at that time of night, explained Elbastawisi, who declined to give his first name.

He said he gets most of his business from phoned-in assignments from Metro Taxi. Those are safer because the company has a record of who called, when, from what number, and where they wanted to go. At the train station however, you don’t know who’s getting in your cab, Elbastawisi said. That’s what makes it so dangerous.

Elbastawisi, who’s 41 and originally from Egypt, said he’s been lucky. He hasn’t been robbed, but he has had fares dash out of his cab without paying, he said.

He said he’s driven a cab for 10 years, working 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. seven days a week. He said the overnight shift is the most risky for drivers, who could get robbed or attacked.

Elbastawisi said he’ll decline customers if they ​“look weird to me.” At the train station, if the next customer looks suspicious, he’ll drive right past and circle around the end of the line of cabs, he said.

“I don’t go everywhere. I avoid Fair Haven. I avoid Howard Avenue. I avoid the area around St. Raphael’s hospital,” he said. ​“We take the risk. But we try to be as safe as possible.”

T.M.

12:30 a.m. — Ariane Turns ​“2” At Toad’s

Ariane Lewis got an early start on her birthday with a splash of ​“pink lemonade” as a Lilly’s Pad bartender poured the evening’s last drinks.

Lewis (at right in photo) turns 26 on Tuesday, but she started the celebration Monday evening by gathering with friends and family at Lilly’s Pad, the lounge section of the famed Toad’s nightclub.

Lewis said she wasn’t excited about getting older. To feel better about her age, she decided she was turning 2 rather than 26. It’s only her ​“second year of adulthood,” she explained.

Lilly’s Pad bartender Aspen Powers (pictured) served up the evening’s last drinks, mixing something he dubbed, ​“pink lemonade.” It’s a mix of cranberry juice, Sprite, and Malibu rum, among other things.

Lewis tipped back a plastic cup of the pink potion to toast her 26th, or second, birthday.

N.S.

12:08 a.m. — Lt. Dadio Marks 20 Years

As C Squad officers lined up at midnight to start their day, Lt. Lisa Dadio told them to be on the lookout for a liquor store robber. But first, have a piece of cake.

Lt. Dadio presided over the 12 a.m. line-up on the second floor of police headquarters. It’s the assembly that marks the commencement of a new shift of officers coming on duty. But on Tuesday at 12 a.m., it also marked the completion of 20 years on the force for Lt. Dadio, and a celebratory frosted sheet cake was on hand for the occasion.

Just before midnight, Officer Enrique Rivera was prepping his shift log, where he’ll record everything that he does in the next eight hours of his shift. At 12 a.m., a bell sounded, and Rivera shot to his feet with the other 15 officers in the room as Sgt. Steven Teague emerged from an office to pace through and inspect their uniforms.

Calls of ​“Yes, ma’am” and ​“Here ma’am” came as Lt. Dadio took the roll. Officers bent over notebooks to record Lt. Dadio’s description of a man who knocked over Grand Avenue’s Hollywood Liquors at 6:22 p.m. on Monday: stocky build, blue jacket with stripes. He took $300 in cash and lotto tickets, she announced.

She chose three officers to guard two hospitalized arrestees, then switched to a personal note. Pointing to the cake that an officer at the 11 p.m. line-up had brought in, Dadio announced she and several other cops were marking two decades on the force.

“All of you will get there,” she said. ​“I didn’t think I’d get there. … It’s a great feeling.”

After line-up, cops filtered out to their cars. Officer Julie Hill, who’s been on the force for two and a half years, lingered to polish her shoes using a machine against one wall.

The calls for service on the 12 – 8 shift can be the most intense: gun assaults and other violent crimes tend to come in at the wee hours, she said as she headed out to her car.

T.M.

Related stories from today’s 24-hour coverage:

• The Grind
• Daybreak