More than 1 million New Yorkers may wake up on Friday to find their doormen have gone on strike.

Talks between Local 32-BJ, representing 28,000 residential building employees,and the Realty Advisory Board, negotiating on behalf of management, stretched late into the night yesterday. And while some progress had been made, it was unclear at press time whether a contract settlement would be reached before a union-imposed 12:01 a.m.deadline.

Earlier in the day, union and management negotiators said they were far apart on the chief issues: salary and benefits. Building owners, citing rising operating costs, want to impose a wage freeze in the first year of a three-year contract, and they are proposing that employees contribute to their health coverage for the first time. Union leaders have said repeatedly that they will not accept either proposal, calling them “givebacks” that should not be necessary in a strong real estate market.

In an early afternoon news briefing, the president of the Realty Advisory Board, James Berg, said there had been “some movement” on both sides, but that a “substantial gulf” remained on the major economic issues. The union president, Michael Fishman, ruled out the idea of extending the deadline. “We’ll be striking on Friday if there’s no agreement today,” he told reporters yesterday afternoon at the Sheraton New York Hotel in Midtown, where the two sides have been meeting since Tuesday.

If union leaders call a strike, thousands of workers would leave their posts sometime Friday morning, most likely between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., Mr. Nerzig said. Residential doormen, porters, elevator operators, and maintenance workers last walked off the job in 1991.

Several doormen interviewed yesterday said they were more than ready to walk out if the union’s demands were not met. Others, however, were more reluctant.”We don’t want to go, but it’s up to our bosses,” a doorman of 16 years at 55 Central Park West, Viorel Pasku, said.

Building management and tenants have been preparing for a possible strike for the past several days and, in some cases, weeks. Many management companies have reserved security guards and issued identification cards to tenants, some of whom have volunteered to pitch in by manning the doors, sorting mail, cleaning, and taking out garbage.

With preparations in place, many tenants are taking the possibility of a strike in stride. “It’s no big deal,” Kate Evans, 36, said. Ms. Evans said managers of her Upper West Side residence handed out keys and building passes to tenants. “I think it’s a privilege to have a doorman. So deal with it if you don’t.” Some companies and city agencies also have made contingency plans.

Trash may not be picked up from a curb where a picket line is active, a spokesman for the Department of Sanitation, Matthew LiPani, said. But if the garbage piles up to a point where the city declares a health emergency, sanitation workers will be forced to pick it up.

The U.S. Postal Service will only deliver bundled mail if a building representative is there to receive it, a spokeswoman, Patricia McGovern, said. Otherwise, the mail will be returned to the post office.