Holding Down Fort at Polo Grounds Senior Center

The bus slowly reached a halt and the passengers started to get their belongings together. “Can I leave my bag here? It has my medicines,” asked one. “You go first dear. It will take me a while to get up from the seat,” said another. Unhurriedly, like a movie playing in slow motion, they started to make their way towards the door.

On this Thursday morning in early October, the passengers, most of them in their 60s and 70s, were headed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses in Bronx for the annual gardening award ceremony organized by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).

Patiently waiting for them at the bottom of the steps was a former cop and part-time nightclub bouncer named Marcus Guevara who has found a new purpose in life helping the oldest residents of NYCHA’s Polo Grounds development. Together, Guevara and the seniors made their way into the building where the ceremony was held.

With a tattoo of a stingray on the back of his hand, the muscular Guevara, 51, may seem an unlikely program coordinator at Polo Grounds Senior Center. And yet that is his job — and his mission.

“I never really saw myself as a social worker, especially as someone dealing with seniors and older people,” said Guevara, who was a New York City police officer for about 15 years. After he quit the force at the age of 36, he says that he somehow fell into this line of work.

Guevara made his way into social work as a computer instructor at a senior center in Washington Heights. He often jokes that he went to “University of Fern,” referring to Fern Herzberg, who is the executive director at the center.

She encouraged Guevara to become a part of the Meals on Wheels program, which provides food to homebound elderly. It began as a pilot program at the center with roughly 80 seniors.

Herzberg, who has a master’s degree in social work, told Guevara that the best way to learn how to help people was to get actual experience. “It’s good sense to go to school to learn the terminology but in reality, you can’t really teach emotion,” he said. “It can be felt only when you come face to face with a person.”

Guevara worked at another senior center in the Washington Heights area before he moved to Polo Grounds 10 months ago. It hasn’t always been an easy transition. He says he was first greeted with hostility, often ignored and made to feel like an outcast.

He felt the seniors were uneasy with the way he was running the center. “I have a strong character,” he said. “Sometimes people think that I’m rude but I like to come straight to the point.” He says his no-nonsense attitude comes from his years as a cop and a bouncer.

Guevara says that his work as a bouncer has always been a ‘part-time thing’ for him. He started out at a nightclub in downtown Manhattan in the late 1980s and now works at a place called Latin Quarters on weekends. It doesn’t even feel like a job to him anymore, he says. “For me it’s not the money, it’s about diversity and change,” he said. “When I’m working at the club, it’s more like I’m hanging out with my guys.”

Even at the senior center Guevara sometimes feels like a bouncer. He says it’s because he has to deal with many different people and has to be on top of things. At both the places his job is to protect people. “I gotta make sure that people who come into the place feel safe,” he said. “Just knowing that we didn’t have any altercations means we did our job well.”

One night, his two worlds intersected. “It was hilarious,” he said. “Two 80-year-olds trying to go at it, going in circles and I’m thinking it’s about time one of them should throw a punch. After going in circles so much, one of them finally tripped and the other one got on top of him.” Guevara let them vent for a while before picking them up, separating them and sending them home. “You think they might be 80 or 70, but they can get down,” he said.

At the center, his job is a little tamer. He has arranged for the reconstruction of the toilets to make them wheelchair accessible, obtained new refrigerators for the kitchen, added televisions in the dining and waiting area and altered the lunch menu to include the suggestions made by seniors.

Making the residents comfortable is critical. They not only meet over meals, but also come together for a choir group, a gardening club, for art and sewing classes and regular tai-chi classes. The center even organizes monthly field trips to casinos and Walmart.

Olivia Peterson, 80, is part of the choir group and gardening club at the center. She proudly pointed to the picture of the garden that her group tends and said that she has made many friends through the center’s activities. She attends the recently introduced computer classes for beginners and appreciates Guevara’s efforts. “Marcus is a people person,” she said. “He’s doing a good job.”

Guevara constantly struggles to make the center into a place that seniors enjoy visiting. “I want to get these painted next,” he said, pointing to the institutional beige colored walls of the reception area. “This place shouldn’t look like a prison.” But despite his efforts, he says he can’t please everyone.

“They wanted computer classes, so we hired a teacher,” he said. “We arranged for daily lessons but you go take a look inside the lab, there are hardly four or five seniors there.”

Guevara has some days when he becomes frustrated with his job. “Sometimes I feel they don’t really know what they want,” he said. “They demand new things, play with it for a while and then just throw it away. But I guess that’s what happens to you at old age.”

But gerontologists say efforts like Guevara’s can actually make a big difference. According to 2011 NYCHA Resident Data Book, there are 659 senior citizens at Polo Grounds who are 62 years and over and 42.6 percent of these residents live alone. Several research studies indicate a strong correlation between social interaction and health and well being among older adults. Loneliness may have significant adverse effects, especially for older adults.

“Social isolation among elderly can be detrimental and can even lead to depression,” said Ursula M. Staudinger, director of the Butler Columbia Aging Center at the Mailman School of Public Health. She says that social interaction is also needed for cognitive training; lack of it can negatively impact the brain.

Many of the seniors Guevara helps agree. Barbara Morton, 65, a resident of Rangel Houses in Harlem, joined the Polo Grounds’ seniors on their recent trip to Empire City Casino in Yonkers. Morton says apart from gambling, she likes to play bingo, exercises regularly and has joined social clubs in order to keep herself busy. Morton raised four children as a single parent and has 14 grandchildren but now prefers to live alone and enjoy her independence. “I have a boyfriend and I like to keep busy with him and not complain about the aches and pains of old age,” she said. “Staying in all day makes you old, it makes you die.”

The senior center, which is run by Church on the Hill and Department for the Aging, has 120 registered seniors. Staff members hand out flyers and put up posters to attract more members but still face problems with recruitment. “Every time we have an event, we go and promote it in each building,” says Guevara. “I give them diverse things to do but still it’s hard to grab their attention.”

George Martinez is one of the seniors in Polo Grounds who is not a part of the center. He moved to the development about 46 years ago. He and his wife were few of the first Puerto Ricans in the project. Martinez, who has seven children and three grandchildren, says he is 21 at heart. He often sits out on the benches in the complex, smoking a cigarette and casually chatting with his neighbors.

“I miss the old days,” he said. “We would go to Atlantic City and gamble all day. Everyone is dead now, I’m the only one left.” Martinez doesn’t care for the senior center or its various activities. “I don’t go there no more,” he said. “It’s a whole bunch of old people. When I walk in there, they want to see my ID. Man I live over here. What you wanna see my name for?”

Guevara is firm about the rules that he has put in place at the center. “I have policies and regulations that need to be followed,” he said. “If you don’t like the laws of the house, you’re not obligated to be here.”

He is constantly encouraging residents to come out of their houses, be a part of the activities at the center and to exercise. “I can’t help everyone out, not everyone wants to be helped but at least the few that I touch make me feel that I’ve made a difference,” he said.

During his time here, Guevara says he has bonded closely with a few seniors.

One of them is 71-year-old George Brown, who has lived in the project for 20 years. He is a licensed social worker, an activist and a painter. Brown is one of the seniors who Guevara is attempting to get employed at the center.

“This organization is trying to do good things here, Brown said. “Marcus has come in with an idea of caring about people and tries to understand people at an individual level.”

Guevara has filled his office with his own abstract art pieces and packed the shelves with signed football and baseball souvenirs. He describes it as his very own man cave. His door is always open and seniors often come by to chat with him. “Now people don’t even call me by my last name,” he said. “They come to me and say ‘Hey Mr. Marcus, how was your weekend?’ or ‘Did you catch the football game last night?’ With time, I’ve been able to reach them.”

Seniors he has worked with over the years have given him many of the sports souvenirs. He is a fan of football and baseball and when seniors find out that he’s into sports, they start giving him signed cards and balls to add to his collection.

“For some of the seniors I’m like their kid,” he said. “Some have even told me that I look out for them more than their own kids and that’s gratifying for me. Those kind words and gestures make me feel that I’ve done my job for the day, that’s something my salary can’t give me.”