Hard Times for Drivers of the Wall St. Powerful NYTimes.com

Emmy Perez was hit doubly hard when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

Ms. Perez is a dispatch supervisor at a black-car company that, until this week, did a large portion of its business with the investment bank. She also moonlighted for Lehman during the holiday season, when she worked at a succession of glittering corporate parties, steering bank employees and clients to their waiting cars. The second job has meant ,000 or more in additional income for Ms. Perez.

As the aftershocks of the Lehman collapse ripple through the city’s economy, many businesses are likely to feel the impact, from restaurants and bars to fancy clothiers. Few industries rely as heavily on Wall Street clients as the black-car companies, which chauffeur the financial titans, stockbrokers, bankers and their accountants and lawyers.

“We’re trying to cope with the situation and hopefully we’ll be able to bounce back, but any account that you lose at this time in this industry, it hurts,” Ms. Perez said on Tuesday during a job break at All City Corporate Transportation, in the Bronx. She estimated that drivers for her company gave hundreds of rides a week to Lehman employees and that All City was just one of several firms that served the bank.

“A lot of people think, ‘This doesn’t affect me, I don’t play the stock market,’ ” Ms. Perez said, “but it does affect us. It affects me personally. It affects the little guy.”

Estimates vary, but officials in the industry said there were about 12,000 to 15,000 black-car drivers working for more than 70 companies, known as bases.

Most drivers said they worked 12-hour shifts, often 6 days a week. Even before Lehman crumbled, they said they had begun feeling pain from Wall Street’s turmoil this year.

George Milczynski, 54, a driver for Admire Limo, said that a year ago he usually made 25 trips a week but now just 15. On Tuesday, he had parked his black Mercedes S430 outside Lehman’s headquarters on Seventh Avenue at 49th Street, just north of Times Square, waiting for an employee of Barclays, who was inside, apparently talking about the possible acquisition of some of Lehman’s assets.

“Everything is very tough right now,” said Mr. Milczynski, who lives in New Jersey. “We are in this together with the banks.”

In most cases, drivers buy their own car, often a used Lincoln Town Car, and associate themselves with a base. The base, in turn, contracts with companies, like banks and law firms, to provide cars for the use of their employees. Those employees typically give drivers a voucher that allows the base to bill the company for the trip.

Robert John, 35, of Cambria Heights, Queens, has been driving for All City for two years. He, too, was parked in front of Lehman waiting for a Barclays employee.

Mr. John said that he usually made 6 trips during a 12-hour shift, with an average fare of . In a six-day week, that makes 36 trips for a gross of ,160. After deducting All City’s 20 percent commission (2 a week), as well as payments for his radio dispatch unit, car loan, insurance, gas and other expenses, his take-home pay is 0 a week.

“It’s not an easy living,” Mr. John said. “And one less client in the industry is bad news for us.”

Many drivers make even less.

Researchers for the New York City Investment Fund estimated that, after expenses, the average driver took home ,000 to ,000 a year, or about 5 to 0 a week, said Maria Gotsch, the president and chief executive. of the fund. The fund, an arm of the Partnership for New York City, is working to create a program to help black-car drivers buy fuel-efficient vehicles.

Ms. Gotsch said that in August the fund surveyed a pair of large bases and a financial sector firm that is a large user of black cars and found that for the month the number of trips was down 15 to 20 percent from the same month the previous year.

Despite the drop in business, many drivers stick with it because they have invested so much in their cars and fees. Many bases are cooperatives, and drivers pay large amounts for an ownership share.

With fewer rides to go around, Ms. Gotsch said, each driver takes fewer trips, and everyone makes less money.

“Rich you don’t get in this industry,” said Victor Dizengoff, the executive director of the Black Car Association, a trade group. “But I look at it as the glass half-full, and say this is all going to come back.”

Still, Ms. Perez, the dispatch supervisor, said many people in the industry were worried about what comes next, much like the employees at the Wall Street firms they serve.

“We think there might be a little domino effect going on,” she said. “Everybody’s like Chicken Little right now, watching for the sky to fall. Being that it’s our livelihood, it’s a little bit grim right now.”

C.J. Hughes contributed reporting.