I lived in a highrise in NYC for about three years of my life. It was one of the luxury apartments with full doorman service, grand lobby, and marble in the bathrooms. With what my roommate and I paid in rent over three years, we could have bought a nice house in the burbs. So I remember the doorman well.
The thing that always got to me — especially after 9/11 — was that these doormen pretended to provide security, but in fact, did nothing of the sort. If a determined attacker wanted to come into my building and start blowing people away (after all, we did have some very wealthy people living there), there wasn’t a damn thing these doorfolks could have done. Maybe call 911, but anyone can do that.
Now Joe Ferrara brings word of a new twist on the whole doorman thing — the cyberdoorman:
Faced with the rising cost of human labor, it is not surprising that companies are turning to alternatives provided by technology. In apartment buildings, the first to go may be the doorman.
Cyberdoorman, located in New York, provides security and a technological replacement for the building doorman using internet cameras, intercoms, telephones, remote entry and package lock-off rooms. Cyberdoorman is connected to the building devices via a high speed internet connection.
I suppose if all you use your doorman for was to screen visitors, this would work out fine.
For myself, I say, hell with that. If I ever subject myself again to the overpriced jungle that is Manhattan, and my condo/coop fees are going towards paying service staff, then I want armed security guards as doormen. I want them trained in urban combat, certified and provide actual security, not just the illusion of one.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that the first building to offer armed security at the door will find a huge upsurge in demand for their apartments in this day and age.
-rsh
