“The rent is too expensive,” Indiana Hernandez, 33, the manager of Lucy’s Barber Shop on North 5th Street in Reading, said of her reasons for leaving the Bronx. She moved to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in 2006, and she said she liked her adopted city well enough — work in the shop was preferable to the waitressing and factory jobs she had in New York, though she’d rather be doing hair in the front of the shop than sitting in the back room, monitoring the security cameras. Another shop employee, Aidee Maria, 39, said that the Bronx was fine for work, but that Reading’s quality of life was preferable.
“I like the flowers,” Maria said of her new hometown, laughing.
