Doormen

by Peter Bearman

Little fascinates New Yorkers more than doormen, who know far more about tenants than tenants know about them. Doormen know what their tenants eat, what kind of movies they watch, whom they spend time with, whether they drink too much, and whether they have kinky sex. But if doormen are unusually familiar with their tenants, they are also socially very distant. In Doormen, Peter Bearman untangles this unusual dynamic to reveal the many ways that tenants and doormen negotiate their complex relationship.

Combining observation, interviews, and survey information, Doormen provides a deep and enduring ethnography of the occupational role of doormen, the dynamics of the residential lobby, and the mundane features of highly consequential social exchanges between doormen and tenants. Here, Bearman explains why doormen find their jobs both boring and stressful, why tenants feel anxious about how much of a Christmas bonus their neighbors give, and how everyday transactions small and large affect tenants' professional and informal relationships with doormen.

In the daily life of the doorman resides the profound, and this book provides a brilliant account of how tenants and doormen interact within the complex world of the lobby.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Ethnography, Anthropology

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Peter Bearman is Jonathan R. Cole Professor of Social Science and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theories and Empirics at Columbia University. He is the author of Doormen (2005) and coauthor of Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart (Columbia, 2018).

Reviews

[Margaret McCamant]

It took me a long time to finish this book, given to me by my sociologist daughter for Christmas in 2019. Although it's about New York City doormen, it was very interesting to me because we live in a doorman coop building in Chicago. After reading the discussion about unionized doormen and their threatened strikes in New York (during which tenants organize to do the doormen's jobs!), I am curious to find out if our doormen are in a union.

I was most struck by the concepts of social distance between doormen and a building's tenants. Even though they know many personal details of the tenants' lives, the doormen don't assume a personal relationship. And tenants don't often propose one, either. We all stick to safe topics of conversation because more personal details would make clear the income gulf between doormen and residents. Although there is undoubtedly plenty of material, this book doesn't spend time on doorman or tenant gossip.

Another fascinating discussion is all about Christmas bonuses, especially tenants' efforts to discover how much fellow tenants give without revealing their own choices. Everyone wants to be in the mid range, to not be seen as cheap nor as giving a lot in expectation of special treatment!

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this study of Manhattan's doormen and their strange and often complicated relationships with tenants. Though the book is clearly an academic work and is well-grounded in sociological theory, the author writes in a direct and accessible manner that helps someone without such background quickly understand the concepts.

It's worth noting what this book is not: the book is not a tell-all or a memoir. There are no names given and no descriptions of the lives of specific tenants. It's not a case study of any particular doorman and doesn't go into detail about any specific building. Instead, it's a broad, academic study of the work relationships between doormen and tenants and the way in which their interactions are structured.

In particular, I enjoyed the examination of the meaning of Christmas bonuses and the observation that when tenants report the size of the bonuses that they give, there are strong incentives to actually underreport when talking to other tenants. I also didn't realize that doormen and supers were generally unionized workers. I was fascinated by the history of the union (and the tale of corruption in the union as well).

I don't know how much interest this study will have to anyone unfamiliar with NYC housing and the strange phenomenon of doorman buildings, but for anyone who has lived in New York, this is a highly interesting and informative read.

[Brittany McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chapter on unions, surprisingly my favorite... until I read the appendix on methods. So many little gems in there.

[Colin K-D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got some good anecdotes, and chapters about the bonus and the union were worthwhile, but otherwise really pretty bad. Too many spelling or grammar errors, convoluted and repetitive sentences, and really navel-gazing. Not to mention positing that poor people don’t actually love their pets! Relieved to be finished.

[Ray Mo]

很好的课题，容易访问调研。字数很多，没从心理学角度深入挖掘该群体内心。对收入变化描写不少。

[Al Tearjen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless novel that illustrates some of the most intriguing sociological theories

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I was expecting a collection of anecdata, but instead this is a scholarly sociology study of New York's doormen. The author used his students to perform field interviews of doormen to compile a broad portrait of the workers. The interesting takeaways were: (1) Doormen help shape the preferences of tenants, particularly of those who may be new to doormen life. For example, does one prefer food orders brought with or without calling up first. If a tenant isn't explicit about this themselves, doormen ask these questions and get the tenant to take a position. (2) Most doormen don't apply for the job and get it, there are informal relationship networks that get people into the positions, which potentially explains the diversity distribution of the people. (3) Safety is frequently cited as a reason for doormen, but the author could find no reports of there being true safety incidents. This could be ascribed to a concept the author establishes earlier, which is that doormen help project the culture of the building onto the sidewalk and street outside the building. This in turn elevates the status of the neighborhood and improves overall safety. Overall this was an interesting read, but it did get repetitive. It feels like each chapter was written to be independently extractable, because the introduction and conclusions often restate high-level concepts from prior ones.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very well-documented book about doormen. Did you know this profession has the lowest % of women? Interesting to me but probably even more interesting to those of you who have lived in the city.