The Boston Globe

Each weekday, thousands of people ride Bus 19 through the heart of some of Boston's poorest neighborhoods. Bound for school, bound for work, bound for grocery stores and soup kitchens. As the state and nation struggle to emerge from the depths of recession, a team of Globe reporters and photographers is traveling the route of Bus 19, chronicling the little-known rhythms of life in a part of the city that engages in the struggle each day.

8/01/2011 - Boston, MA - Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital - Esther Chase, cq, stops cleaning for a moment to chat with a patient. She works as a housekeeper on the cardiac intensive care floor at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. She makes $14 an hour and spends it as carefully as possible to cover her bills and monthly rent. She cleans quickly and quietly throughout her early morning shift amid the doctors on rounds and nurses tending to patients. Dina Rudick/Globe Staff

Hospital housekeeper works overtime but is still stuck in place

Bus 19

Brothers seek a way up and out

Bus 19

Lifted briefly by the tide

Bus 19

On the long road up, the past is close behind

How hard should it be to move past a criminal life into an honest one? Step off Bus 19, and drop in on the Boston Workers Alliance, and you quickly get a sense of how very hard it is.

Bus 19

At large on a network of need

Iris Soares is an uneasy person when her cart is empty, and it is empty now. But it is just after 6 in the morning. The cart is always empty at this hour.