She’s going down — but not without a fight.
After devoting nearly 25 years to an East Harlem high school, 89-year-old aide Fran Tortorici has been banished to a tiny elevator, which she’s forced to “guard” for nearly five hours a day.
Co-workers at the Manhattan Center of Science and Mathematics called the “Office Space”-esque treatment of the veteran aide (who turns 90 next month) a disgrace.
They accuse Principal David Jimenez — whose school rates an “F” for “environment,” including safety and respect — of sticking Tortorici in the 4-by-6-foot box to force her to retire so he can give her $28,000 salary to someone else.
“She’s a paraprofessional — not a bellhop,” one colleague said. Another said: “If she retires, she’d die. She’s defiant. She not going to go, and that’s it.”
Tortorici, who drives in each day from Long Island, has difficulty walking because of arthritic knees. She sits on a rolling chair and “scoots” down the long halls by using her cane like an oar to push herself along.
She never complained.
“It’s a job, and I’m lucky to have it,” Tortorici said.
“I do what I’m told. Do you say to your boss, ‘No, I don’t want to do that?’”
But Tortorici admitted the elevator gig was “nonsense, really.” Her main responsibility is to stop students without elevator passes — which are limited to those who can’t climb stairs — from trying to hitch a ride.
“The door opens, and I’m sitting there like a vigilante,” she said. “You have to be firm. I tell them in a sweet way. They listen, and that’s it.”
Called by The Post, Principal Jimenez said the assignment was “temporary.”
Tortorici, born and bred in East Harlem, raised three sons with her husband, Frank, who died in 1969. She worked for a furrier, an adding-machine company and at Rao’s, the legendary East Harlem restaurant then run by her uncle, Vincent Rao, before she joined the school staff at age 65.
“I love it,” she said of working at the school. “I didn’t neglect anything and I was a good friend to all the kids.”
Tortorici set up the biology lab and assisted the math department. She worked in the nurse’s office and the college office and monitored a room for misbehaving kids. Many of the 1,650 students give her Christmas cards and gifts.
She lives in Atlantic Beach, LI, with her son, Frank, his wife, Sandy, and their three teen sons. In a bedtime ritual, the boys say, “Night, Nan. Be careful driving in. Drive safe.”
After two weeks sitting in the dim, suffocating cell, Tortorici was eager to return to the main office — where she answered switchboard phones, helped schedule substitute teachers and relished “a lot of camaraderie with the girls.”
“I’d like them to know that I don’t intend to stay there in the elevator,” Tortorici said. “I’m easy to a certain extent. I can take so much and no more.”