For New York, a city of hustlers and strivers, living in a doorman building has long been a signifier that you\u2019ve made it\u2014that you\u2019ve reached a socioeconomic status that finally allows for urban life to be a little bit easier. That\u2019s thanks to the doormen, porters, and supers: They sign for your packages. They collect and dispose of your trash. They keep spare keys so you\u2019ll never lock yourself out. They hail cabs, even in a blizzard. They\u2019ll fix your leaky sink. They\u2019ll oversee furniture delivery or appliance installation. They let guests up to your apartment and keep unwanted visitors out. In some buildings, they\u2019ll receive your groceries or dry cleaning and put them in your apartment for you. In every building, they\u2019ll greet you each morning and night when you walk in the door, maybe with a treat for your dog or a lollipop for your child.<\/p>\n
And now they all might be gone. For how long, we don\u2019t know. The last doorman strike in New York was in the spring of 1991. It lasted 12 days. How did the city handle it? Honestly, not well.<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2270998354.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Thousands of 32BJ SEIU building service workers at a rally on April 15. They voted to authorize a strike that will impact more than 3,300 residential buildings in New York City.<\/p>\n
Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plumber can\u2019t come, so the pipe keeps leaking,\u201d Dennis Hevesi wrote for The New York Times on May 2, 1991. \u201cThe baby\u2019s diapers are doing the same, but the diaper man can\u2019t deliver. The movers can\u2019t move, so some people are stuck paying two rents\u2014for the apartment where they must still live, and for the one where they should now be living. And tenants all around town are fuming when they\u2019d rather be fumigating as the garbage piles up and the pests burrow in, but the exterminator can\u2019t get into the building. Help!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe RAB\u2019s proposals to cut costs on the backs of its essential workers are insulting,\u201d counters 32BJ president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[17,9,24,55,54,12,56,14881,990],"class_list":{"0":"post-200885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-culture","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed","16":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}