Anthony Couverthier’s father was a constructing superintendent. His brother is a brilliant, too. His longtime accomplice’s stepfather additionally works as a brilliant. 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 Residence 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 eager to get too deep into the household career, first working as a full-time porter and a handyman by day in a constructing on the Higher West Facet 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 vary when he was hoisting his twin newborns in a double stroller up the steps to his two-bedroom house in a fifth-floor walk-up the place his accomplice, April Diaz, grew up within the East Village.
He badly wanted the most important perk that comes with working as a full-time superintendent: an house. He began taking free programs supplied via SEIU’s 32BJ, the nationwide union of property service employees, the place he’s a member, and obtained licensed in all the pieces from fireplace security to locksmithing.
Mr. Couverthier’s outdated boss informed him the earlier tremendous at a constructing on West 72nd Avenue was retiring after virtually 30 years. With out him realizing, his former boss and Ismael Bonilla, the stepfather of Mr. Couverthier’s accomplice, Ms. Diaz, and tremendous of 15 years within the constructing throughout the road, really useful him for the job.
The earlier tremendous didn’t dwell within the constructing full-time, however Mr. Couverthier knew he didn’t solely desire a full-time job, he needed 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 record 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 light-weight bulb swap on 4. An impromptu whats up within the hallway turns into a bathroom that wants unclogging. He often sends voice notes of incomplete duties to Ms. Diaz as a option to save them in his telephone. Typically he writes them on a whiteboard calendar, however principally, he writes his each day to-do record 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 p.c 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 Facet. He thinks he paid $125 for the timepiece that “takes a beating however has by no means actually conked out on me.”
Time is vital to a brilliant whose schedule is dictated by priorities. Something with water or electrical energy comes first and all the pieces else can executed so as of significance, a course of he’s honed over time. Mr. Couverthier writes his record utilizing a “ought to, may and would” philosophy. A water shut down for the renovation in 2B ought to take 4 hours. However he’s additionally at all times fascinated about what may go unsuitable and what he would do (name a plumber) within the occasion. If there’s time, he may change a water filter, substitute 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 concerning the Knicks.
Mr. Couverthier’s youthful brother can 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 along with his greatest buddy who died across the time that Mr. Couverthier — donning a rotation of Knicks and Mets caps — arrived to work within the constructing.
Fashion is vital to Mr. Couverthier, who collects sneakers and fedoras and sometimes will get complimented by strangers on the road for his style 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 isn’t any 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 can ever make me look nearly as good as him once 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 house within the constructing. “I used to be scared. I used to be like, ‘Oh my god. How are we gonna dwell right here?’ As a result of the house appears nothing like once we moved in. It didn’t really feel like house,” she recalled considering. However along with her mom and father throughout the road to assist with the twins, free lease on the Higher West Facet, and a wage enhance, they couldn’t cross it up. She started to analysis how one can psychologically handle a tricky renovation and located an article that steered giving a dwelling space-in-progress a reputation.
The couple named the house Aurora, based mostly 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 outdoors their house 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 house with their 5-year-old fraternal twins Ainslie and Augustus. (Mr. Couverthier has 4 different youngsters from a earlier relationship.)
The house 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 lowered to $500 a month from $800 monthly.
In these days, the younger Mr. Couverthier’s job was to take out the trash. He spent many summer season days along with his father, hanging drywall in different tenants’ residences. “I’d at all times assume, ‘Why the hell are we doing this?’”
The reply, he now understands, was that it was a option to assist a household in one of the crucial costly cities on the earth.
Now, he can present his circle of relatives with housing. Earlier this yr, Mr. Couverthier’s mom, Virginia Simmons, traveled from Puerto Rico to go to. She cooked each night time, together with sancocho. “Everyone 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 all people comes.”
Ms. Diaz decorates the constructing’s foyer yearly, full with an annual theme. Final yr’s theme was “Winter Wonderland,” with a number of Christmas bushes, and the yr 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 have been in a scenario the place we didn’t know one another lengthy sufficient. And for them to really put their — truthfully put their life in my arms — was, like, I sort of took satisfaction in that.”
Since gyms have been closed in the course of the lockdown, Mr. Gerald would climb the constructing’s 12 flights of stairs for each day train, working into Mr. Couverthier with a salutation, “Thanks for preserving the constructing secure, Anthony.”
Within the spring of 2021, Mr. Gerald and his spouse, Laini Gerald, attended a Mets recreation, certainly one of 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 yr. It is a new season. This could possibly 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 considering, “This must be framed.”
It took practically two years, however Ms. Diaz obtained the picture printed and framed and wrapped it in shiny paper to present to the Geralds for Christmas in 2022.
The Geralds hung the picture up of their house, which was just lately renovated after certainly one of Mr. Couverthier’s could-go-wrong moments. (One night time this February, water poured into the Geralds’ house, the results of a frozen pipe that had buckled underneath the stress of one of many coldest nights of the yr.)
Mr. Couverthier’s job, now his profession with advantages and an house for his household, has been rather a lot like the opening that fashioned within the pipe — it was certain to occur. “The superintendent gap” is what he calls it.
It took Mr. Couverthier a very long time to see the sunshine and turn out to be a full-time tremendous. He thinks his oldest son, who’s 24 and works as a handyman, may additionally make his manner into the household career. “You get these alternatives with that sort of monetary stability. And you understand, then, make the very best of it for your self, your spouse and your youngsters,” he mentioned.
