300 Central Park West

Lily Herzan

When I was in kindergarten, I remember telling my friends that I was moving to the big building with two towers that you could see from the rooftop playground of Convent of the Sacred Heart on 91st and 5th. We would run to the edge of the building and stick our noses through the chain-link fence and stare out at my new home from across the Central Park Reservoir.

My lobby is huge. The heavy gilded glass front doors open into the dimly lit front room with marble floors and a big wooden desk plopped in the center. To the left is the hallway that leads to the elevator bank, with mirrors covering every inch of wall space so that it feels like someone is always watching you.

There are sixteen doormen in my building and I‘ve had twelve years to get to know them. There are always six doormen on shift at a given time—three at the main entrance, one at the side, and two in the back. When I was little, I didn‘t remember all their names. They would blur together. I got high fives from someone when I got home from school in my red-and-white-checkered uniform, and on the weekends there was always someone to wish me good luck on my AYSO soccer games, and to cheer me up when I lost. When I turned six, the guys on shift brought me a cake with sparkling candles and sang a badly harmonized version of Happy Birthday, and when I looked like I‘d been crying, they made me smile.

I used to bike to school, and every morning, I would go with my mom to the bike room in the back of the building. Patrick runs the bike room. Every day, he‘d greet me with a "Mornin‘ Lily," in his potent Irish accent, and help me buckle my helmet without pinching my fingers in the clasp.

I used to get home every day promptly at 3:30 and the usual crew would be on duty. "Hello Miss Lil," Manny said as he opened the door for me. "How was school today?"

I get home at 6 or 7 nowadays, but the shift hasn‘t changed. Manny, Lenny, Kenny and Eduardo are in the front. "Hello Miss Lil," Manny says as he opens the door for me.

"LILY waddup girl?!" Lenny slaps my hand for a high-five as I step over the threshold.

My building has the most faulty and complex security system ever. It‘s more than just a key or a phone call. Each announced visitor gets an elevator card from the front desk that only works half of the time. I always forget my card.

Kenny sits behind the front desk most afternoons, while Lenny mans the door, and Eduardo is in the elevator hallway. It‘s easy for me to read Kenny‘s moods. "Hi sweetie," he says, rubbing the dark circles under his eyes and looking down at his hands.

"Long day?" I ask. "You have no idea," Kenny mumbles. I woke up at 5:00 this morning cause they wanted me to fill in for Orlando this morning. It‘s a double shift day." He ran his hand through his buzz cut hair and rubbed his eyes.

An old woman with her white hair pulled back into a tight updo walks through the double front doors. Kenny straightens himself up. "Hello Mrs. Diamond, how are you?" He forces a smile onto his face and waves as she silently clip clops along the marble floors in her kitten heels. He slumps back down when she rounds the corner, and tells me about how he was supposed to pick up his daughter from school. "It‘s not your fault," he says. "It‘s just family stuff."

Lenny is usually the one to break the ice of Kenny‘s sad moods and rile him up. When Lenny is on his feet, he struts around the lobby and speaks fast with a thick Brazilian accent. "I need you staying in school now, and finishing off well – not like some other kids in the building," he‘d say to me. "You know I‘ve seen some other kids, and they‘re bad news. They‘re bad kids, smelling like pot all the time and smoking on the corner. Like they think I don‘t see them. We‘ve got eyes everywhere!"

Sometimes I think that Lenny and Kenny should have their own sitcom. "I SWEAR to god young lady, if you come in these doors tomorrow, and don‘t have your card, I‘m gonna make you walk up those ten flights of stairs for a week!" Kenny shakes his head at me and laughs as Lenny comes bounding over.

"Oooooooh Lily you better be scared!" he teases. They put on their best shows whenever I have friends over. Lenny puts on his macho doorman act for about a minute to make people sweat. "You. What‘s your name? And where exactly do you think you‘re going?" He breaks down after that first minute and starts laughing, always on cue. It‘s contagious too. He‘s jokingly locked people out of the lobby, he‘s rapped "Chicken Noodle Soup" at the top of his lungs and he has ballroom danced around my lobby with my friends. Kenny usually sits at the desk laughing and shouting things.

They do their best work together. God forbid a boy steps into the lobby asking for my apartment, Lenny and Kenny have a field day. "Listen here," said Kenny in one instance. "I‘ve known this girl here since she was five. And I promise you if you break her heart I‘ll know."

"And I‘ll break your legs," chimed in Lenny, pulling a baseball bat out from under the front desk and placing it menacingly in front of him. If boys ever visit, they usually go through the side entrance instead.

I don‘t like coming home to my building when I‘m upset, because I know that Kenny and Lenny will be the first to comment on it. If my eyes are slightly puffy, the questions will start. "What‘s up Lil?" Kenny will say. "Who are we gonna beat up?"

The lobby is almost never empty. When I was little, I used to go downstairs with the pretense of needing Manny‘s help with my Spanish homework so I could sit and watch the people come in. At night there are always lots of delivery men who park their bikes outside and walk in with plastic smiley face bags that smell like Chinese food. Visitors come in and out, and Kenny will call up to Mr. and Mrs. So and So saying that they‘ve got a guest in the lobby, should he send them up? I‘ve been noticing the little kids in the lobby more and more. Noticing the ways that Lenny and Kenny mess with them. I walked into the lobby the other night to find Lenny‘s arms wrapped around the head of a boy from the F – line. “Wha‘dya call me crazy for huh? You crazy?” Lenny was laughing, and so was the boy who was struggling to get free. “Lemme go, lemme go!” squealed the boy, squirming around Lenny‘s hands and running free towards his elevator banks giggling as he went. And that was me not too long ago.

Sometimes there are other teenagers hanging around the lobby, procrastinating going upstairs to their physics homework and English reading, just like me. Lenny and Kenny like to argue with them about sports. "Wait for that comeback," said Lenny. "I‘m not holding my breath. This game belongs to the Yanks,” said Kenny. He has a Yankee emblem tattooed on his forearm.

If I ever come home after 11 at night, Lenny and Kenny won‘t be there. The late night shift is a mellower bunch. Guarding the door stands Angel, with his arms crossed and shoulders firm. He wears black aviators in the dead of night. I think it‘s because it helps with his intimidation factor. I wouldn‘t want to cross him. Ever. Jose sits behind the desk. He‘s new, so he doesn‘t talk to me like a kid he‘s raised. He didn‘t see me when I was five and I came in crying with a skinned knee or wearing a Harry Potter costume for Halloween. We‘ll talk about school, or whatever I was doing past age eleven. He‘s also there with Angel when I wake up for school in the morning, bleary eyed, and stumble into a taxi.

Jose was sitting behind the desk the other day, taking an extra shift as Kenny was hailing a taxi. A girl a few years older than me walked across the street towards us, and Kenny‘s face lit up. “Suze! How‘re ya doing sweetie – long time no see!”

The girl smiled back. "I just got back yesterday – thought I‘d stop by and say hi to everyone." She smiled and started to walk inside.

"Say hi to your brother for me now. Haven‘t seen him in a long time," Kenny shouted over his shoulder as a cab pulled up and he opened the door for me.

In the taxi I thought about the girl. Next year I‘ll be her. Maybe in a few years I‘ll come back to the building and just wave and smile at Kenny and give Lenny a high five. I won‘t see Jose or Angel, and I won‘t hear about Kenny‘s bad days, or get wished good luck on soccer games. I‘ll have to learn to buckle my own bike helmet, and think back to Lenny‘s dancing and laugh. She was probably only a few years older than me, maybe a college junior but already she was almost a passerby to Kenny. Four years ago, she was probably just like me. She might have heard the same stories and seen the same mood swings, and shared the same laughs as I did every day.