Stephen Bruno’s memoir, “Building Material,” centers on his life as a Manhattan doorman over the past 20 years. For the last 14, he has been at his current workplace, a high-end building on Park Avenue that is home to about 60 residents.
Mr. Bruno, 42, was raised in the Bronx as the oldest of seven siblings in a Puerto Rican and Ecuadorean household. His father also works as a doorman — a job Mr. Bruno, who moonlights as a salsa dance instructor, got him.
Mr. Bruno lives alone in an Upper East Side apartment four subway stops from his job. Writing has not made him rich, but he is not complaining. As a doorman, “I get paid well,” he said. “I can’t say I’m doing poorly.”
CLICK AND GO I wake up at 5 in the morning and the first thing I do is stretch for 20 minutes. It’s a mixture of regular stretching and some yoga. I have a herniated disc on my back, so if I go to work and stand up too long, I’m going to blow out my back. I stretch until I hear that click, the click in my back, and then I get ready to go. I make instant coffee and a protein shake and get my lunch out of the fridge and pack it all up in my book bag. I grab a pair of dress socks and go to work really casual, in sweatpants and running sneakers.
SHIFT INTO GEAR On the way to the train, I walk past my coffee guy. He’s one of those corner guys. I grab another small coffee and a scone from him. He’s been there for years. I want to support him. When I get to work — I should be there 10 minutes before my shift starts at 7, but sometimes the stretching takes a while and I get there late, at 7 — I change into my uniform at the building. I put my lunch in the boiler room, where we all put our lunches so they can stay warm during the shift. I get dressed and go upstairs. One of the things I did at home is put pomade in my hair so I don’t have to do it at work.
FORBIDDEN CHAIRS I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t really do much on Sunday. I don’t hate working on Sundays because it’s such an easy, quiet day. I sit down in one of the forbidden chairs I’m not supposed to sit in. They’re really nice leather chairs inside the building, not in the vestibule. My boss knows I sit there and he doesn’t care. It’s so quiet. Very few residents are around on Sundays.
BE NICE After 14 years, we all know each other very well in the building. We’re all friendly. There are residents you’re not that close to, the “hi and bye” types, but you don’t take it personally. I’ll open the door for residents. If I’m running the elevator, I’m bringing them back up to their floor. Otherwise it’s just politeness people want on a Sunday. People are going to brunch, they’re going for a walk in the park. They just want you to open the door and say hello.
NO SNITCH When I eat my scone I stand in the mailroom or the elevator room. Nobody cares except the one lady who hates my guts. Why does she hate my guts? She views me as taking the job undeservedly from an Irish guy. She actually admitted this to the doorman when I started, so there’s a racial component. But she also hates me because I won’t be her snitch.
She wants to know what’s going on with all the residents in the building. There used to be a doorman who told her everything that was happening. She asked me when I started and I turned her down. I would never do that. So now she hates me for 14 years. If she sees me somewhere sipping coffee, like in the mailroom, she will call the management or the super to complain. My boss, who’s in the back, he does what he has to do, which is tell me she complained. She comes up with new complaints, too. When I pressed the buttons on the elevator with my middle finger, she said that was me giving her the middle finger. Me and some of my co-workers had a good laugh about that one.
DOUBLE TIME I often sit down and read the news on my phone, or a book. Right now I’m reading Ernest Hemingway, “The Sun Also Rises.” I daydream a lot. When I was working on the book, I’d work on sentences and paragraphs. I’m working in my head now on a second book.
WORSHIPFUL, WEARY When my shift is done at 3 I go home. I sit down, have a cup of coffee and stretch again for 10 or 15 minutes if I feel any kind of tightness, which I usually do. Then I get dressed and go to church. My church is Bethel New York on the Upper West Side. I would call it evangelical. They have a long worship session. From 5 to 6 it’s almost like a concert. I sit down toward the tail end if they’re still going, if they’re still singing. I love worship, but my legs start hurting. Then I listen to the sermon, but I have to leave at 7 when they’re usually still speaking because I have to go teach salsa at Gonzalez y Gonzalez in NoHo.
NEW YORK STYLE It’s a Mexican restaurant, but the owner loves salsa. I teach Thursdays and Sundays. On Sundays it’s a more international crowd. New York City is a mecca of salsa, and we have our own style here called New York style. People come from different countries because they’re curious about New York style, or they’re just wanting to dance in their style. We have live bands. Before it starts at 9, we teach a class so anyone from anywhere can get the basic steps down.
It’s a lot of fun and no pressure. It’s not a salsa school — it’s a Mexican restaurant. No one’s getting graded. You’re allowed to make mistakes. I’m going to make mistakes. I love to dance. I’ll stay for two hours dancing. I have to go to work the next morning at 5, but I can’t help it. I’ll collect my belongings and go home at 11:30.
COLOMBIA? On the way home I have a guilty pleasure. I stop at Roma Pizza on Third Avenue between 88th and 87th and get two slices. For some reason they call me “Colombia” there though I’m not Colombian. I bring them home and gobble them down. That’s a late-night snack I shouldn’t be having. Then I shower. I don’t like sleeping dirty. That bothers me. I’m in bed usually by midnight. I have to wake up five hours later.
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