The Manhattan Times

Owning the floor he swept for 30 years

by Adam Garrett-Clark

Francisco Fontarigo’s new living room is sparse. There is a couch, a small round table with chairs, a water cooler with a small potted plant on top and his large television set that he uses to watch soccer and news on channel TVE, Spain’s public-broadcasting channel.

His white walls are kept bare to better reflect the sunlight and give the appearance of a larger space.

As a child, growing up in Galicia, Spain, he said the indoors were used for two things: eating and sleeping. The rest of the time was spent outdoors.

The 66-year-old has just begun a new chapter in his life. After 36 years working as a porter for River Terrace Co-op, Fontarigo was recently made a shareholder – he now owns his own apartment in the building.

Residents of the co-op, who had grown fond of him after so many years, threw a party for their newest neighbor on Thu., Dec. 3.

Normally the co-op’s policy is that building employees are ineligible. But, thinking ahead, Fontarigo timed his application to coincide with his retirement.

Knowing that it takes five to seven years to get through the waiting list, Fontarigo turned in his application about five years before he planned to retire.

The building on Riverside Drive near W. 158th Street is a Mitchell-Lama co-op, named after State Senator MacNeil Mitchell and Assembly Member Alfred Lama who proposed the 1955 housing subsidy that encourages development of rental and co-op owned buildings for middle-income residents. The average price of a one bedroom in the building is $30,000.

The job of a porter at the co-op, Fontarigo explained, is to keep the 17-story building clean, mostly by mopping and emptying public trash receptacles.  But Fontarigo took it upon himself to do handy work, both on the building and inside residents’ apartments, normally the job of the superintendent.

The Spanish speaking Fontarigo said he felt he had to do more, feeling at a disadvantage with the language barrier. By going the extra mile he began to ingratiate himself with the management and the residents. “Me fui ganando la gente con trabajo duro [I began to win them over with hard work],” he said.

Over the years, as is the case with sustained familiarity, he began to grow an affection for the co-op and its residents. “Toda la gente aqui es como parte de mi familia [everyone here is like part of my family],” said Fontarigo, who used to live in the Bronx.

He wanted to move in.

Over 36 years, he learned the rhythms of the waiting list, watching strangers walk in and ask for applications followed years later by seeing them wheel in furniture.

As a teenager in Spain, Fontarigo was training to become a priest but decided to leave school midway through because, he said, “me gustaba las mujeres [I liked women too much].”

As a young man he took to travel, working for a time in one place and then exploring other parts of the world where the exchange rate allowed him to live luxuriously. “Yo llevaba una vida muy fancy [I had a life then that was very fancy],” he said.

Eventually he found himself in the Colorado Rockies working as a sheepherder. He always saw America as the land of gold, he said. In America “nos creimos que el dinero caia de los arboles [we believed money fell from the trees],” he said.

He later made his way to New York eventually taking a job at the River Terrace Co-op, where he said he fell in love with the city.

Thirty-six years later, with his new apartment and a life of retirement ahead of him, he said he has all the time in the world to travel again.