Debra Goodman (DG) and Edwin ’Ed’ Trinka (ET)

DG: How did you get the job as doorman at the Plaza Hotel?

ET: Well, my father was a garage manager at the plaza for thirty years, and he was friends with all the doormen. And when I graduated from high school he said there is a nice job for you over there, just go over and talk to somebody. One of the doormen was sick and he put the hat and coat on me, which fit very well, and they put me on the door right away, and I got outside and started working. That was my first job and it was great.

DG: What was the best tip you ever got?

ET: Well I always tell the story about Jackie Gleason. For Christmas time he says to me, ’What was the biggest tip you ever got?’ And I says, ’Well, a hundred dollars.’ And he says, ’Here’s a hundred and fifty dollars and merry Christmas.’ He says, ’By the way, who was the one that gave you the hundred?’ I say, ’Well that was you last year.’

DG: Now I got to know you because I walked to work every morning and then I cut by the plaza and then I see you, and you made my day cause you’d say, ’Good morning young lady, beautiful day.’

ET: That’s what it’s all about, being in front there and smiling and just making everybody happy and that’s the whole thing of it. You know anybody that comes in there is a VIP. And when they tell me you treat them like a VIP, I say I already do. I had a guest that come in there one morning. Six-thirty in the morning and he had to go to a very important meeting. And he asked me where he can get his shoes shined. And I says, ’It don’t open till eight o’clock, our barber shop.’ So I says, ’I tell you what give me the shoes, and you come back in a half an hour or so and I’ll have them done.’

I ran down to my locker, got my shoe shine kit, which I have in my locker to shine my shoes, shined them up for him, come back up, he come by, put his shoes on, got to the meeting, and he’s one of my best friends. Matter of fact, he comes back to the Plaza all the time. You know my father told me years ago, he said, ’Be such a man and live such a life, that if everybody lived a life like yours this would be God’s paradise. And I go by that.