Watch out for resident Dial Anderson in the elevator — she’s a kisser.
But a kidney transplant on March 4 kept Anderson from that simple pleasure. Donning a germ-preventing mask she told the janitor, “I can’t kiss you now.”
Anderson grew up on Park Lane. When she was a teenager, her father cussed builder Hal Anderson [no relation] for building a high rise in the neighborhood. “But I was drooling to live here one day,” she says.
Dial Anderson moved into the tower as a single girl from 1975 to 1978. After marrying and doing it “my husband’s way” — living in a house for 22 years — she says she made her husband move back to the tower 19 years ago.
“I love the people and the dogs here,” she says. Her dog is named Peaches.
The couple adopted a daughter, Mariana, from Russia 24 years ago. “From the time she was 9, my daughter was raised here, and people are so kind to her. I was at work 12 hours a day, my husband was a house husband, and the men and women in this building helped us raise our daughter.”
Anderson, whose voicemail proclaims, “This is Dial, having the best day of my life,” remembers a concierge at the front desk who kept a close eye on her daughter. “She’d tell Mariana, ‘Go upstairs. It’s time for your dinner.’”
About 60 tower residents attended Mariana’s wedding. Anderson’s husband died recently. After her kidney transplant, neighbors made her meals and sent cards. She enjoys seeing folks in the elevator.
“You park your car in the basement, get on the elevator and whoever is on with you is a captive audience. Some people are glad I live on the fourth floor instead of floor 29 so they can get me off the elevator. I’m a talker.”
She says neighbors help one another with groceries and hold the door for each other. “It’s a neighborhood,” she says. “We’re the most fortunate people in the world to have each other.”
