I’m the oldest tenant in the building.

When Lenny turned 98 years old, his home health aide threw him a party. Dozens of his neighbors attended. He’s well-known — and well-loved. In the 65 years he’s called his Upper East Side apartment home, Lenny has become a fixture. “I’m a character,” he says. “I’m the oldest tenant in the building.”

A year ago, when Lenny collapsed in the shower, the doorman heard the thump and came to check on him. Lenny was rushed to the hospital where he had an emergency pacemaker installed. Since then, he’s had some complications and a few more hospital trips. “I’m not a good patient,” he admits. He’s doing better now, he says, but it’s forced him to slow down. Now he spends most of his time in his recliner.

Lenny was born and raised in Manhattan, several blocks from where he lives now. “I was 14 when the war started,” he says, referring to the 1941 bombing of Pear Harbor that finally pulled the United States into World War II. Following the attack, half a million men across the country enlisted. Lenny wanted to be one of them, but he wasn’t old enough. The next three years he spent waiting, desperate to turn 17, so he could do his part.

As soon as he could, Lenny — along with many of his fellow classmates from George Washington High School — joined up. Lenny chose the navy. “Everyone was shipped to the Pacific,” he says. But not Lenny. Instead, after he completed basic training, he was sent to radio school at a military base in Florida, where he was taught how to intercept and decode messages from enemy forces. He was still in training when Japan formally surrendered, ending the war.

Lenny went back home to New York. He went to college and eventually started his own construction company, building and furnishing office buildings throughout the city.

Lenny’s business was his life. He worked seven days a week, 10 hours a day — 15 on weekends. He never married or had children, but he considers many of the people used to work with family. Many of them still visit him.

The other visitors he gets are the people who deliver his meals. Lenny has been receiving meals from Citymeals for two years now. He loves the food. “It’s almost gourmet meals,” he says. “The carrots! The vegetables! The meat!”

The regular deliveries allow him to continue to live independently in the home and building he loves. Because Lenny has no intention of going anywhere. “I’m a young 98,” he says. “I hope to be 100.”