Why Some Say "No Thanks" to a Doorman

[Christiern]

Do you have a doorman? Are you sorry you do? Do you wish you did? I guess most of you live in places where they are not needed, but my building has them, and I have lived here since May of 1963. Sure, they know who comes to see you, how late you stay out, etc. I don't care about that, they represent a great convenience. My building, for example, has a Taxi button on the elevator and by the time I reach the lobby that cab is either there or about to pull up. When it comes to packages or other deliveries, they are worth their weight in gold? I never had them walk my dog, but I can see the advantage that might represent. Security? Well, that's self-evident. Have a doorman experience you wish to share?--CA

Doormen

April 9, 2006

Why Some Say 'No Thanks' to a Doorman

By TERI KARUSH ROGERS

N

EW YORK is in the midst of an epidemic of new buildings that promise to deliver every service known to man, woman, child or pet. Central to all of that, of course, is a doorman.

But to some people, the presence of a doorman is seen as a negative, not a benefit. Yes, a doorman can put the newspaper outside your door, walk your dog when you're sick, make you feel important, keep an eye on your children (or your babysitter) and haul your shopping bags to the curb. But he is also privy to some of the most intimate details — and moments — of your life.

"Doormen know everything," said Stephen C. Brandman, 42, the chief operating officer of Thompson Hotels, a luxury boutique hotel chain. Until recently, he lived in a doorman building on Park Avenue, and he lived full- and part-time in his hotels that had doormen before and after his marriage.

"The challenge becomes when you have overnight guests; sometimes the doormen share their thoughts about that," said Mr. Brandman, referring to unsolicited remarks garnered during his bachelor life. "Sometimes they wanted to know why ex-girlfriends had come back into the picture, so there would be running commentary."

Even while married and living on Park Avenue, he chafed at the extra sets of eyeballs.

Returning from the gym, "I would be drenched and I didn't want to see a soul," he recalled. "I didn't want to face the doorman and elevator operator. When you're not at your best, that's the time you wish you could just sneak in and disappear."

No one understands this better than a doorman. In fact, most doormen would apparently rather live without a doorman even if they could afford it, according to Peter Bearman, a Columbia University sociology professor and author of "Doormen" (University of Chicago Press, 2005), a study of the profession. They perceive the insular, elitist boundaries created by their presence as unnatural, Professor Bearman said in an e-mail message, and they are loath to jeopardize their privacy.

"Doormen know how much they know about tenants and would prefer not to have someone know that about them," he said.

To doorman detractors, deliveries are a doorman's sole raison d'être.

"The biggest utility of having a doorman is that there's someone to accept the packages," said Andrew Rosenblatt, 33, a bankruptcy lawyer at Chadbourne & Park. Several years ago, he and his wife, Courtney, left a full-service theater district high-rise for a nondoorman co-op on the Upper West Side, with a live-in superintendent to handle most deliveries.

He much preferred the new arrangement. "We just felt like they really didn't do anything for us," Mr. Rosenblatt said of the doormen. "If anything, you sort of feel obligated to engage in idle chitchat. And the whole tipping thing presents another moment of tension. Our doormen weren't too helpful, but if you were carrying a bag you wanted to take yourself, and they'd come and take it, did you tip them?"

Holiday tipping is an exacerbated exercise in misery for those already ambivalent about their doorman. And for others, the need to make conversation is so annoying that it alone is enough to drive them into nondoormen buildings.

"I had one young guy who moved from a fancy condo doorman building in California where he had a very cheery doorman," said Hy Rosen, a senior vice president at Bellmarc Realty. "He wanted a building without a doorman, and his biggest reason seemed to be he didn't want to have to say hello to someone twice a day."

Michele Golden, another broker for Bellmarc, lived in two luxury buildings before buying a Chelsea loft that came with just a full-time superintendent. She doesn't miss the constant socializing, which she found cloying. "It's like a really good restaurant — the lower key the service, the more I like it," she said. "When they're fawning all over me, I'm not enjoying that. I don't want service to be intrusive in my life."

According to the conventional wisdom, doormen make buildings safer. Many people believe that to go without is practically an invitation to being menaced — or even dispatched — on one's very doorstep. And isn't it a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman would sooner give up her colorist than her doorman?

Sort of, said Edward Herson, a vice president at Halstead Property. "If they come in from out of town, from anywhere west of the Hudson River, they definitely want a doorman," he said. But once they live here for a while, "if they are price conscious they want to give it up, because they feel safer in the city."

In fact, "Doormen" reports that while doormen and residents emphatically cite security as a major benefit, few could recall any security incidents at their buildings. (Of course, as the book points out, it is possible that the mere presence of a doorman deters miscreants before trouble breaks out.)

Able defenders or not, doormen add as much as 10 to 15 percent to the value of an apartment, according to Miller Samuel, a Manhattan appraisal firm. But the annual cost — around $80,000 per doorman ($37,315 in salary, plus overtime, benefits, training and other expenses), according to the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ — can put a disproportionate burden on smaller buildings, which have fewer units to share the expense.

Last year, after his divorce, Mr. Brandman moved into a new six-unit condominium building in Chelsea, which he found with the help of Anna Shagalov, an associate broker at Halstead. The modestly sized building's original plans called for a doorman. But with only five other owners to share the cost, Mr. Brandman and his new neighbors decided to do without. They put in a security system, and arranged for a neighboring business to accept deliveries. His only regret now, he said, is having to be home for Fresh Direct.

No one is saying that the doorman's day is done, and certainly not developers of larger-scale properties, for whom luxury and doormen go together like glass and steel. But some smaller developers are sensing a happy convergence of technology with a shift in the doorman zeitgeist.

Mick Walsdorf, a principal of the Manhattan-based design and development firm Flank, said that he and his partner conducted a "dinner party survey" before hiring Virtualservice.net to install a virtual doorman system in Novare, an eight-unit condo conversion of a church near Washington Square Park.

"Everybody was just kind of ready to pass on the doorman concept," Mr. Walsdorf said. "If you consider all the intrusions into your personal life these days, whether at work or in the city in general, you start to understand why people feel like they may not necessarily want to talk to somebody every time they come into the building. In a smaller building like ours, it's a no-brainer."

[Randy Twizzle]

"I had one young guy who moved from a fancy condo doorman building in California where he had a very cheery doorman," said Hy Rosen, a senior vice president at Bellmarc Realty. "He wanted a building without a doorman, and his biggest reason seemed to be he didn't want to have to say hello to someone twice a day."

How do you think doormen feel having to be nice to so many self-involved assholes every day? The Times once again comes through with a hard hitting article spotlighting the problems of creeps with an endless sense of entitlement who sometimes have to deal with those horrid service people.

[Epithet]

"I had one young guy who moved from a fancy condo doorman building in California where he had a very cheery doorman," said Hy Rosen, a senior vice president at Bellmarc Realty. "He wanted a building without a doorman, and his biggest reason seemed to be he didn't want to have to say hello to someone twice a day."

How do you think doormen feel having to be nice to so many self-involved assholes every day?

So it's a win-win situation.

[Claude]

""The biggest utility of having a doorman is that there's someone to accept the packages," said Andrew Rosenblatt, "

My neighbour, a retired lady, takes care of my deliveries. I've a sticker on my mailbox asking the postman to ring at my neighbour's door for packages that don't fit my mailbox (Mosaic sets ). In return, I empty her mailbox and forward her the mail to her appartment in southern France when she's on a longer vacation. BTW, that's also a privacy issue, seeing whom a person receives mail from.

Doormen (what we call "concierge") are almost non-existent here, even in the most luxurious appartment buildings. The cost would be out of proportion with the benefits, even when the person would also take care of maintainance, repairs, gardening etc. Security is not such a big issue here.

Edited April 8, 2006 by Claude

[catesta]

If I lived in a building I would prefer to have a doorman.

I know I love it when the hotels have one.

Chris, that taxi button has got to be one of the greatest ideas ever.

Any vacancies in your building?

Edited April 8, 2006 by catesta

[Randy Twizzle]

"If you consider all the intrusions into your personal life these days, whether at work or in the city in general, you start to understand why people feel like they may not necessarily want to talk to somebody every time they come into the building.

It's possible that when enough people feel that talking to your doorman twice a day is somehow "an intrusion into your personal life" building management will start enforcing a No-talking policy for the guys manning the doors. Perhaps as residents enter or leave the building, the doorman can simply bow down while being extra careful not to make eye contact with the tenant (that can be terribly intrusive).

Edited April 8, 2006 by Randy Twizzle

[Christiern]

We have had snotty tenants who feel a need to be "serviced" beyond reason, but they did not appear until my building went co-op. That brought in the yuppies and their precocious kids. Mind you, some of these people were nice, but there were a great number of horrible people. No sooner did they appear before the started forming committees--for everything, the front lobby, the rear lobby, the elevators, the laundry room, everything! And they had their meetings, all feeling ever so important.

Before they came, this was a fun building. People used to assemble on the roof (a garden, of sorts, back then) for drinks after work, and there were lots of great parties. Everybody got along, tenants, doormen, etc. Personally, I have always maintained a friendly, first-name relationship with the doormen. If I go to the store, I always ask them if they want anything, I help them with their computer problems, etc. In turn, they go out of their way for me, they call when I have a package and put it on the elevator so I won't have to go to the lobby, they let me know when the mail is in (it used to be delivered to our doors twice a day--those days are gone forever), etc.

When Babs Gonzales was around, he lived down the street from me and he had a bad habit of showing up in the middle of the night--the night doorman always diplomatically turned him away. "The gentleman with the wooden shoes was here," he'd tell me.

Since drugs all but took over the city, I have especially appreciated having a doorman there when coming home late at night.

Do I hear occasional gossip from their lips? Of course, but I take that as a bonus.

[Epithet]

I want my very own doorman. I will name him George and I will hug him and squeeze him and pat him and pet him...

[brownie]

Our building has a concierge!

Quite a number of Paris houses still have them. Ours comes from Poland. A very nice lady whose husband does all kind of little things when he has time off from his job. The previous ones hailed from Spain and Portugal. Most of the buildings in our neighborhood have Portuguese concierges.

Not a doorwoman, ours does not call for taxis, we do that ourselves if needed. But it is great to have a concierge around.

She takes care of keeping the building clean, distributes the mail, forward it when the residents are away and also takes care of the various plants when people are away.

There was talk some years ago of getting rid of the position but the majority of tenants outvoted this.

Our concierge also keeps whatever gossip to herself.

Long live the concierge!

[Jazzmoose]

I want my very own doorman. I will name him George and I will hug him and squeeze him and pat him and pet him...

Forget it. You say that now, but in a couple of months you'll get bored and we'll be stuck with cleaning his box...

[Christiern]

Brownie, here we call that person a Super (as in supervisor). Here a Concierge usually sits behind a desk while the doormen stand at the door. At least in New York.

I have been in NYC apartment buildings where there were more doormen and concierges than there are tenants in a 4-story brownstone. We used to have a building staff of 24 (not very good at Christmas time ), but now we only have 1 super, 3 maintenance men, and 6 doormen.

[Claude]

Slightly off topic: Last year, the company that managed the maintainance of the house I live in (20 appartments) as well as 2000 other resident buildings in Luxembourg went bankrupt, after it's director had fled to Cameroon with two million dollars, money that appartment owners had advanced in order to finance costly maintainance work.

We were lucky, as the several thousand $ that were on the account of our house remained untouched. We even benefitted financially from the bancrupcy, not having received bills for the last 3 months that the company had worked for us.

Meanwhile, the director has been arrested at Brussels airport and is about to be extradited to Luxembourg. Apparently the preparations for his "retirement" in Cameroon (he was even honorary consul for Cameroon in Luxembourg) weren't that perfect, he feared for his life and prefered to return and turn himself in.

Edited April 8, 2006 by Claude

[RDK]

I've got no problems with doormen (nor have i ever had one on a regular basis), but i really hate those valets in the mens' room who squirt soap in your hands and hand you towels after you take care of business...

[Shawn]

Fuck...doormen...give me a break!

I grew up in a 100 year old, falling down, piece of shit house in rural West Virginia. Wood stove for heat, 40 year old furnace for backup, hand dug well that ran dry every summer, no fucking insulation and hard wood floors.

I was real worried about the lack of fucking concierge service....

[Christiern]

Sounds a lot like sour grapes.

BTW, I have, as a child, experienced all the inconveniences you list--we did have water in the summer, but no electricity, ever. Big deal.

[Randy Twizzle]

Fuck...doormen...give me a break!

I grew up in a 100 year old, falling down, piece of shit house in rural West Virginia. Wood stove for heat, 40 year old furnace for backup, hand dug well that ran dry every summer, no fucking insulation and hard wood floors.

I was real worried about the lack of fucking concierge service....

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:

They won't!

[Shawn]

One of my favorite Monty Python skits...

...and yes, I walked to school, uphill, both ways.