At an age when most people are reflecting on past glories – or are simply happy to be able to reflect at all — Sullivan remains as much of a dynamo as she's always been. In her 80s, when she was running her own travel agency, was elected president of the 1,500-strong New York chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents, and two years later was elected national director.

"She's a ball of fire," says the co-op's longtime attorney, Bruce Cholst, a partner at Rosen & Livingston. That isn't immediately apparent when you see the slight, somewhat frail-looking woman who has had a hip replacement and knee surgery, walking slowly through the building's long corridors, steadying herself with a walker. But she has the coiffure and clothes of an elegant lady-about-town, and resident manager Tony Pellosie says she's loved by almost everyone in the building.

Sullivan (right) talks in a deep, throaty voice with a slight lisp that makes you lean in every now and then to catch a word. She insists that nothing worries her because she's "not going to be here that long." Still, she does her share of worrying. "I picked up the phone at 1:45 a.m. and started to dial your number," she tells Pellosie. "I wanted to ask whether the new people we screened were aware of the maintenance increase — not realizing what time it was." She guffaws: "I said [to myself], 'What, are you crazy?'"

It's a Wonderful Life

Born in Brooklyn, the only child of German immigrants, she married nightclub singer Lee Sullivan in 1936. He later became a Broadway star. "Our picture was on the cover of Life magazine," she says. "He was a wonderful man and we had a great life."

The couple had two sons, and in 1971 she went into the travel-agency business with one of them. Their clients included some of the biggest names in the rock-music world — which often that meant handling not just the travel arrangements, but the clean-up afterward. When one band returned the rental car she had booked for them, the rental company complained that the car's roof had been shot full of bullet holes. Her deadpan response: "It's your own fault. I told you they needed a convertible!" (Nonetheless, she did make sure the band paid for the damage.)

After her husband died some 20 years ago, her sons persuaded her to move into her present apartment. "They wanted me to be in a building with a doorman and a 24-hour garage because I was doing a great deal of traveling for the business." After living in a house all her life, she didn't think she would ever get used to apartment living. But her sons said: "Look at it as a hotel," and that worked for her.

In July 2007, just a month after she had been elected board president, "she thought that what she set out to do should have been accomplished already," reports Lorraine Haufmann, administrative assistant in the resident manager's office. It didn't get done in a month, but by January, her initial projects had been finished: a quarter-million-dollar façade refurbishing; a dedicated in-house TV channel; and a seven percent maintenance increase. That last was unpopular, but the treasurer advised it, Sullivan pushed it through, and the co-op has virtually eliminated maintenance arrears.

Talking Face-to-Face

Pellosie says Sullivan gets things done by directly approaching people rather than using form letters and red tape.

"Most people who live in co-ops have lived in apartments their whole lives," Sullivan says, "so they really have a landlord complex: If you don't like it, let somebody fix it. They don't realize they are the owners, they are the landlords, and I find they are rather demanding. How do I deal with that? I just tell them, 'It's your house.'"