View From the Lobby

Have you ever seen an Asian doorman in a NYC apartment building? I sure haven't. But I'd never given it a thought before reading Peter Bearman's new study, aptly entitled Doormen. And, come to think of it, a group of men (and the occasional woman) whose job it is to track when you enter and exit your home, whom you're with, when your mail arrives and what's in your trash, is kind of a creepy thing. So who are these uniformed lords of the lobby and how do they deal with the unique view they get into their tenants' personal lives?

Since doorman is a word-of-mouth job, and a plum position for someone who is willing to work hard but who lacks higher education or other marketable skills, it tends to stay within social and ethnic networks. According to Mr. Bearman, few people look for work as a doorman (and those who do end up on years-long wait-lists). Rather they are offered positions by family members or close friends who work as supers or otherwise have an in. Thus the lack of sexy doormen named Chang.

And it's not a bad job. There's a strong union, reasonable hours, good pay and, of course, the Christmas bonus, which for many doormen amounts to more than ten large-tax-free.

Mr. Bearman, the chair of Columbia University's sociology department, takes the reader through a doorman's day dealing with tenants, visitors, co-workers and supers. Fits of pseudo-scientific theory alternate with notes and accounts from the doormen themselves, at which points Doormen reads like a fine pulp thriller.

I know something about doormen. They're supposed to have tact. But some don't. When my doorman Mike thought I'd gained weight, he asked, "Are you wearing a second pair of pants under those?" Another, who used to tell me anecdotes about having to eat his dog while serving in the army of the Domincan Republic and later selling drugs in New York had personal charm, as well as five kids, each with a different woman. He was fired shortly after angrily pulling out a Playboy with his ex-wife exposed inside and shoving it at me while he railed on about her character. Neither lasted long; it's a job that weeds out the freaks.

Though I personally have never experienced doorman lust, it's apparently more of a problem than I thought. As one doorman relates:

"One day I was working the night [shift] and a lady here, I guess she was doing drugs earlier that night. It was like 2:30, 3:00 in the morning, and she came down here just in her underwear. What am I going to do? I approach her very nicely, I talked to her, and I grabbed her by the arm, walked her into the elevator, and took her to her floor? and locked the elevator down here? If she wanted to come down she would have to walk and I don't think she could have made it down the stairs. The next time I saw her, she behaved like nothing happened."

Apart from such fruitless encounters (elsewhere Mr. Bearman goes on about how "in pornographic literature it is not uncommon to find? well-endowed doormen with buff-sounding names like Gary and Chad" using cameras to watch "tenants with names like Monica and Bill have 'sex'"), doormen are there mostly to provide a sense of convenience and especially protection. And few doormen have difficulty keeping out intruders. Trouble more often occurs when a tenant is involved in ogoing criminal activity and a doorman, used to letting a drug dealer or prostitute's guests in without announcement, accidentally lets an uninvited and violently-inclined visitor up without question.

Mr. Bearman is an energetic footnoter and quite a few pages of Doormen are more than half covered in tiny print. He lets his hair down in some of these, using a more conversational tone to share with relish tidbits that don't relate to his broader point. In a footnote concerning dog-walkers, he notes that the dog-walkers' pay is "Not bad, for an academic year, and certainly better than most doormen, not counting the absence of benefits and job security, and the fact that they have to pick up an amazing amount of shit."

Despite the anecdotes and lively quotes, make no mistake-Mr. Bearman is a sociologist, who has written a book "about the dualities that structure interaction, managed uncertainty, impunity absorption, matching proclivities in markets, trust networks, weak ties." Right. But once you get past the daunting jargon, Doormen is a lively look at the uniformed New Yorkers who know if you ordered-in Chinese food last night. n