March 18, 2008

The Lock of the Irish

Fresh from Galway, Gerard D’Arcy started at BU in 1958

By Caleb Daniloff

Locksmith Gerard D’Arcy marks 50 years of working for BU. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Gerard D’Arcy was just two weeks off the boat from Galway, Ireland, when he started cleaning windows and mopping floors at Boston University. He was making $1.31 an hour, and Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House.

“I remember a phone call cost 10 cents to make,” says D’Arcy, now 73. “You’d be looking at the 10 cents thinking, should I make the phone call or keep it? I might need it to eat sometime.”

D’Arcy is celebrating 50 years of working at the University, having first punched in as a custodian before moving on to groundskeeper, truck driver, foreman of trucking and grounds, and ultimately to the lock shop, where he’s now lead lockmsith. And when you work someplace for half a century, a certain lore builds up around you.

“Supposedly, I started on St. Patrick’s Day 1958, can you believe that?” D’Arcy says in a soft Irish lilt. “I always take St. Patrick’s Day off. So actually, I started the day after.”

For the past 30 years, D’Arcy has been repairing, replacing, installing, and popping locks all over BU. And although he doesn’t like to tell tales out of school, he says he’s faced his share of rescue-me moments.

“I remember once, in West Campus, two boys were supposedly locked in a room with two girls,” D’Arcy recalls. “I went over and knocked on the door. I just opened it, and the girls looked at the boys and said, ‘Hey, you told us you couldn’t get out.’”

William Walter, assistant vice president for facilities management, says that when it comes to security, D’Arcy has seen and done it all, making him the ideal mentor for the other locksmiths, as well as a calming presence at the scene of a break-in.

“Ninety percent of all the lock information on campus is in Gerry’s head,” Walter says. “Before there were computers, there was Gerry.”

The introduction of swipe-card locks was a big change on campus, D’Arcy says, but what staggers him most is the school’s ever-expanding size. In 1958, the University had only a half-dozen or so buildings. Today, almost 400 structures are scattered over both campuses, housing some 11,000 students and rental tenants.

“Think of it as two-and-a-half to three locks per person,” he says. “Each person on campus has a door and a desk. The students have a door and a mailbox. That’s a lot of locks.”

D’Arcy, who is married and has three children and one grandchild, has no plans to retire.

“I’ve never given it a thought,” he says. “I’m saying that in all honesty. It’d be up to my wife, really. Whatever she says. I never plan too far ahead anyway. It really doesn’t mean a thing — 50 years or 5 years. When you come in the morning that means something. You feel good about being able to come to work, and having a job.”

Caleb Daniloff can be reached at cdanilof@bu.edu.