Daytime and evening shifts are busy ones for an Upper East Side doorman — hailing cabs, helping with luggage — but how does the late-night doorman pass the wee hours, once quiet descends upon the lobby?
Richard Melnick is an overnight doorman at a building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. When things turn quiet in the small hours, he works on historical books about Queens.
Sure, some doze or idle away the time, but not Richard Melnick, who handles the doorman duties in a large luxury building on East 79th Street.
Mr. Melnick writes books — historical books about Queens — and sometimes the dawn comes too soon and interrupts his ruminations on the Queensboro Bridge or the Steinway piano plant.
“In order to do this job, you’ve got to embrace the night,” he said recently at 3 a.m., standing in his chocolate brown uniform, including the peaked doorman’s cap and white gloves. “You have to make the night work for you. A lot of doormen don’t — they watch the clock and the night destroys them. I’m lucky that once I’ve taken care of all my duties and things are quiet, I can work on my historical projects.”
Mr. Melnick, 47, is the president of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, which also covers Long Island City. He is single with no children, and he is devoted to the bygone days of neighborhoods like Steinway and Hunters Point. He rides his bicycle from Astoria, over the Queensboro Bridge, to work.
When foot traffic subsides after midnight in the building’s lobby, the old days come alive in preserved documents and sepia photographs in countless cardboard boxes he brings from the society’s archive.
The less romantic modern era returns at dawn with the delivery of the morning papers, the rush of office-bound executives and residents padding down to the building’s indoor pool.
Mr. Melnick, who works an 11 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift, writes history for neighborhood newspapers and has been involved in writing four books on the areas of Queens nearest the East River (including a book on the river itself). His latest book is on the Queensboro Bridge, which will have its centennial next year.
He gives walking tours and helps curate the group’s archives. He also organizes field trips, presentations and lectures for students, historians and the general public. The society has exhibits in its space in the Quinn Building on Broadway in Astoria. The building mainly houses a funeral home, and the historical society always smells of fresh flowers.
Mr. Melnick hopes to support himself with his writing someday, but he wonders if getting his nights to himself might disrupt his work habits.
“Working at night really focuses my energy and lets me become absorbed in the past,” he said, standing at his doorman’s desk and flipping through historical documents on Newtown Creek. “Every night I work as a doorman, I become a better historian.”
