Anthony Couverthier’s father was a constructing superintendent. His brother is an excellent, too. His longtime companion’s stepfather additionally works as an excellent. However Mr. Couverthier spent years making an attempt to be one thing else: a tour supervisor for a hip-hop group, a retailer clerk at Dash, a Dwelling Depot worker. After graduating highschool in 1998, he was a communications main at Stony Brook College in Southampton.
He took child steps, by no means desirous to get too deep into the household occupation, first working as a full-time porter and a handyman by day in a constructing on the Higher West Aspect and as a part-time tremendous in a West Village constructing.
About 5 years in the past, Mr. Couverthier, 45, a father of six, realized one thing wanted to alter when he was hoisting his twin newborns in a double stroller up the steps to his two-bedroom condo in a fifth-floor walk-up the place his companion, April Diaz, grew up within the East Village.
He badly wanted the largest perk that comes with working as a full-time superintendent: an condo. He began taking free programs provided via SEIU’s 32BJ, the nationwide union of property service staff, the place he’s a member, and acquired licensed in every part from hearth security to locksmithing.
Mr. Couverthier’s outdated boss instructed him the earlier tremendous at a constructing on West 72nd Road was retiring after virtually 30 years. With out him figuring out, his former boss and Ismael Bonilla, the stepfather of Mr. Couverthier’s companion, Ms. Diaz, and tremendous of 15 years within the constructing throughout the road, really helpful him for the job.
The earlier tremendous didn’t stay within the constructing full-time, however Mr. Couverthier knew he didn’t solely desire a full-time job, he wished to construct a house.
On March 1, 2020, simply earlier than Covid-19 deaths and a lockdown would shake New York Metropolis, Mr. Couverthier took over as superintendent of the 48-unit constructing positioned lower than a block away from Riverside Park and three blocks from Central Park.
Since then, his job has been a to-do checklist that by no means ends, full of routine upkeep and the sudden: A name is a crack on the fifth flooring. A textual content is a lightweight bulb change on 4. An impromptu good day within the hallway turns into a bathroom that wants unclogging. He often sends voice notes of incomplete duties to Ms. Diaz as a technique to save them in his cellphone. Typically he writes them on a whiteboard calendar, however principally, he writes his each day to-do checklist on his left hand, as he drinks his morning espresso and watches ESPN.
“I’m what you name a Swatch-head,” Mr. Couverthier mentioned. He owns roughly 15 watches, and he estimates that 90 % of them are Swatch watches, together with his most worn, a 10-year-old Iron Version that he purchased from the Swatch retailer on the Decrease East Aspect. He thinks he paid $125 for the timepiece that “takes a beating however has by no means actually conked out on me.”
Time is necessary to an excellent whose schedule is dictated by priorities. Something with water or electrical energy comes first and every part else can accomplished so as of significance, a course of he’s honed over time. Mr. Couverthier writes his checklist utilizing a “ought to, might and would” philosophy. A water shut down for the renovation in 2B ought to take 4 hours. However he’s additionally at all times serious about what might go unsuitable and what he would do (name a plumber) within the occasion. If there’s time, he might change a water filter, change a doorknob or make copies of keys.
However there are some diversions: When he will get a name from Mark Gerald, a 78-year-old tenant who works as a psychoanalyst, they discuss in regards to the Knicks.
Mr. Couverthier’s youthful brother can also be a sports activities fan, however as supers, their conversations inevitably flip to the stuff of super-hood: Sheetrock, planters, aspect jobs.
He discovered a listening ear in Mr. Gerald, a local of the Bronx who has lived within the constructing for 25 years. Mr. Gerald used to speak New York sports activities together with his finest buddy who died across the time that Mr. Couverthier — donning a rotation of Knicks and Mets caps — arrived to work within the constructing.
Type is necessary to Mr. Couverthier, who collects sneakers and fedoras and infrequently will get complimented by strangers on the road for his trend sense. “It bothers me that he’s — and I don’t wish to use the phrase fairly — however he’s so fairly,” Ms. Diaz laughed. “And it drives me nuts. There is no such thing as a competitors. I’ve conceded that he’ll at all times be higher dressed. I’ve conceded that there’s no quantity of make-up or costly clothes that I should purchase that may ever make me look pretty much as good as him after we exit.”
The couple met greater than 18 years in the past when Mr. Couverthier was working at Dash.
Ms. Diaz, 42, a stay-at-home mom who beforehand labored in property administration, was hesitant to maneuver into the tremendous’s condo within the constructing. “I used to be scared. I used to be like, ‘Oh my god. How are we gonna stay right here?’ As a result of the condo appears to be like nothing like after we moved in. It didn’t really feel like dwelling,” she recalled pondering. However along with her mom and father throughout the road to assist with the twins, free lease on the Higher West Aspect, and a wage improve, they couldn’t move it up. She started to analysis the best way to psychologically handle a tricky renovation and located an article that steered giving a dwelling space-in-progress a reputation.
The couple named the condo Aurora, primarily based on the character from “Sleeping Magnificence.” Then they gutted the place. Ms. Diaz would say, “Good morning, Aurora,” adopted by Mr. Couverthier saying, “We’re right here to make you fairly once more.” They lined the hallway exterior their condo with summary, city-themed artwork he salvaged from his outdated constructing when residents moved out.
One night, the sounds of salsa from the “That is Frankie Ruiz” Spotify channel stuffed the basement hallway the place the couple lives within the two-bedroom condo with their 5-year-old fraternal twins Ainslie and Augustus. (Mr. Couverthier has 4 different youngsters from a earlier relationship.)
The condo and job remind Mr. Couverthier of his childhood. His father, Carmelo Couverthier, a wallpaper installer, labored as a part-time tremendous in a Bedford-Stuyvesant constructing. He wasn’t paid a wage, however the lease was decreased to $500 a month from $800 per 30 days.
In these days, the younger Mr. Couverthier’s job was to take out the trash. He spent many summer season days together with his father, hanging drywall in different tenants’ flats. “I might at all times assume, ‘Why the hell are we doing this?’”
The reply, he now understands, was that it was a technique to help a household in one of the crucial costly cities on the earth.
Now, he can present his circle of relatives with housing. Earlier this 12 months, Mr. Couverthier’s mom, Virginia Simmons, traveled from Puerto Rico to go to. She cooked each evening, together with sancocho. “All people comes right here. His mother stays right here. His brother stays right here. It’s virtually a house base for the household.” Ms Diaz mentioned. “That’s what makes it an accomplishment for him as a result of that is the place everyone comes.”
Ms. Diaz decorates the constructing’s foyer yearly, full with an annual theme. Final 12 months’s theme was “Winter Wonderland,” with a number of Christmas timber, and the 12 months earlier than that was “The Nutcracker,” they usually positioned an eight-foot-tall singing nutcracker within the foyer. The couple additionally bought a menorah for the constructing with a customized runner, being positive to depart out dreidels for kids throughout Hanukkah.
In some methods, the couple grew nearer to the tenants sooner as a result of Mr. Couverthier started lower than three weeks earlier than New York Metropolis entered lockdown and his job expanded from upkeep and staffing to offering provides and giving important directions. “I used to be a line of protection to ensure I stored them secure. They sort of put their belief in me. And I felt sort of good about it. As a result of we had been in a scenario the place we didn’t know one another lengthy sufficient. And for them to really put their — actually put their life in my fingers — was, like, I sort of took pleasure in that.”
Since gyms had been closed throughout the lockdown, Mr. Gerald would climb the constructing’s 12 flights of stairs for each day train, operating into Mr. Couverthier with a salutation, “Thanks for holding the constructing secure, Anthony.”
Within the spring of 2021, Mr. Gerald and his spouse, Laini Gerald, attended a Mets recreation, one among their first post-lockdown outings. They acquired free jerseys, and there was one thing electrical within the air, Mr. Gerald recalled. “There’s one thing about sports activities that’s associated to the passage of time. There’s at all times a brand new starting. Doesn’t matter what occurred final 12 months. This can be a new season. This may very well be the season the place issues are gonna occur,” he mentioned.
He texted a selfie of himself and Ms. Gerald of their jerseys to Mr. Couverthier, who remembered pondering, “This must be framed.”
It took almost two years, however Ms. Diaz acquired the picture printed and framed and wrapped it in shiny paper to provide to the Geralds for Christmas in 2022.
The Geralds hung the picture up of their condo, which was lately renovated after one among Mr. Couverthier’s might-go-wrong moments. (One evening this February, water poured into the Geralds’ condo, the results of a frozen pipe that had buckled below the strain of one of many coldest nights of the 12 months.)
Mr. Couverthier’s job, now his profession with advantages and an condo for his household, has been loads like the outlet that shaped within the pipe — it was sure to occur. “The superintendent gap” is what he calls it.
It took Mr. Couverthier a very long time to see the sunshine and turn into a full-time tremendous. He thinks his oldest son, who’s 24 and works as a handyman, may additionally make his approach into the household occupation. “You get these alternatives with that sort of monetary stability. And you recognize, then, make the very best of it for your self, your spouse and your children,” he mentioned.
