Saying Good-Bye to the Super

These people were not here for an annual meeting. Nor were they attending a housewarming or a "thank you" party as neighbors who had endured the dust, noise, and inconvenience of nine months of construction in the space my husband and I had lived in for 28 years and that we had recently gutted and rebuilt. If that were the case, I would have invited only a few of these people. The rest were simply acquaintances, a handful of whom I did not know, along with a couple of people who had caused so much trouble in our small co-op that I generally did not want to share an elevator with them.

And yet here they all were: laughing, mingling, making crumbs, and leaving scuff marks. It was not my first choice to host this party. But I did it to honor the one person capable of fixing whatever these people broke: our building superintendent Luis, who would be leaving us the following week.

It had been five years since Luis had told me he planned to retire in 2014. I had met him for the first time in the autumn of 1986. It was in the lobby of this converted storage building in a not-yet-trendy Tribeca. Hugely pregnant, about to be interviewed by the co-op board and desperate to move in before giving birth, I asked the kind-looking man standing outside his office what the board members were like. He walked me to the elevator. "They're all nice," he said as the doors closed between us. "You'll be fine." I rode up deciding his confident smile was a good sign, unaware that he had started on the job only a few weeks earlier.

And so began our dance. His specialty was playing the role of the helpful relative: the handy husband, the compassionate father, the funny uncle, the wise grandfather. Glue together a cruddy but favorite old plate. Remove children's art projects too precious to throw out but too clutter-making to keep. Call me when the mailman comes with college acceptances. Help to set up a crib, a jungle gym, a trampoline. When a friend asked me to store an inflatable bounce house that was going to be used for an upcoming street fair, Luis and I moved my sofa and coffee table out of the way and blew it up in my living room — where we bounced and flipped and laughed ourselves silly for what seemed like hours.

I knew my experiences with Luis were not unique. For years, he was as integral to my neighbors' lives as he was to mine. But in the 28 years since Luis had signed on as super, this lower Manhattan neighborhood had evolved from a diverse Manhattan outpost to a posh enclave. Our building survived the 2001 terrorist attacks down the block, the blackout the following summer, Hurricane Irene, Superstorm Sandy. But no one outruns time. After almost three decades of being there for us, Luis was tired. He was slowing down. And ready to go.

While Luis ran out his self-imposed clock and the board searched for a new super, my neighbor Cathy and I started to kick around ideas for a retirement party. First we had to clear it with the guest of honor. Chances were good our weary super would politely refuse the idea. Instead, he lit up, and doubled down. Could we do it on his birthday, the Friday before his last day, making it a combined birthday-retirement party?

Why not? If we were going to do this right, we had to invite everyone, even people who had complained about the super, people we did not know personally, and people we could not stand. We might wind up with a small party but at least our neighbors would have the option to join in if they wanted.

We needn't have worried: ten minutes after the party's official starting time, my apartment was packed. The guest of honor arrived with several family members and soon the toasts began.

In my toast, I described how Luis had once saved my Christmas. Twenty years earlier, when the top of our Christmas tree had snapped, Luis glued it back together. I took a Polaroid of the moment and attached it to our gold star at the top of the tree. All of our Christmas trees since then had been crowned by the now-ragged gold star framing a surprisingly non-faded Polaroid of a much younger Luis posing with the tree he had fixed.

Neighbors I most dreaded having in my apartment cried when recalling Luis's many kindnesses. Kids who grew up in our building and were now out in the world returned to lower Manhattan to honor Luis. One brought his baby, our collective grand neighbor.

Tonight, we were not co-op shareholders bickering about leaky windows or a broken elevator. We were not jockeying for space in the storage room or explaining why our bikes/strollers/boots/boxes in the hall were okay but yours were not. Tonight, we were good neighbors. And we had Luis to thank for it.

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