The Life of an NYC Doorman

Brandon Portelli sits by the front entrance of the Upper East Side apartment building awaiting guests on a chilly day. [Photo: Mike Merolle]

“Hello”, “Welcome”, “Good morning”, “How are you?”, “Have a good day”. These sayings are met with a smile, a similar response, or sometimes ignored. Nonetheless, Brandon Portelli, a doorman for Park Avenue Court on 120 E 87th St between Lexington and Park Avenue in Manhattan, greets every person that walks through his doors the same way.

Portelli, 29, has been a doorman for over ten years. He started his profession after he immigrated to New York from Malta at 19 years old. Malta is an independent European country 58 miles south of Sicily, Italy. When asked, he says that being a doorman was not his original plan for a career. “The reason I got into being a doorman is because a lot of Maltese people are in this business. Supers, doormen, handymen, so on. When I came to New York, they said look into that. My cousin knew [the building’s superintendent] and I came in for the interview and that was it.” The Maltese community is large in Astoria, Queens. Portelli mentions that he’s familiar with a Maltese club there, near where he lives.

Portelli commutes to work from Middle Village, Queens. Prior to the pandemic, he took a 45-minute subway ride to show up for his seven o’clock morning shift. Now with crime increasing on public transportation and his frequent overtime shifts, Portelli has been driving to the building.

The duties of a doorman may seem simple to many. Open the door, smile, then close the door. However, Portelli was not shy to share his other responsibilities and stories.

The podium beside the front entrance holds a monitor of four security cameras, a two-way radio, and a baton. [Source: Mike Merolle}

Portelli’s main duty is servicing the front entrance. That includes opening the doors, helping residents with heavy baggage, and assisting them with taxi services. A couple of times a day, he will take over the concierge desk and handle deliveries, answer phone calls, and screen any visitor that attempts to walk towards the elevators leading to residents’ apartments.

Henry Aarons, a concierge for 31 years at Park Avenue Court, is relieved when he sees Portelli come to the desk because that means he can go on break. “Brandon is a good person, he’s a good doorman, and he’s a good worker.”

Henry Aarons checks the residents’ delivery screen at the concierge desk. [Photo: Mike Merolle]

It may seem that these are the only duties Portelli carries, however, he mentioned an overlooked responsibility that some residents may not know their doormen have. When necessary, those assigned to the door act as security.

Portelli told a story about a suspicious, combative person that entered the building after staring through the window at a designer sweater a resident left on a coat rack in the lobby. “This random guy came in and started going towards it. I asked what he was doing and he said ‘what you talking about, I’m picking up my jacket’. I said that is not your jacket. I know who that belongs to, can you please leave?. He put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket and then I grabbed the radio. After that, he looked me up and down, exited the building, proceeded to scream in an old man’s face that made the old man fall down on the sidewalk, and ran off.”

The NYPD’s 19th Precinct covers Manhattan North, ranging from E 59th St to E 96th St., which includes Park Avenue Court. In 2022, the area faced 2,790 crimes and carried a 13.3968 crime rate per 1000 residents, according to NYPD CompStat 2.0. The precinct covers a population of 208,259 New Yorkers. The crime numbers seem high, however, in comparison to other neighborhoods in Manhattan with smaller populations and higher crime rates, it is relatively low.

Portelli feels lucky to have the morning shifts rather than the nights due to what those doormen have to deal with in terms of security. “I mean I have a baton right there. Can I use it? I don’t know. I’ve never had to use it. I mean that’s usually for the night shift because you know people run around and stuff. We also deal with a lot of people that come in here and try to get access to the apartments and there’s a lot of residents that don’t keep their doors locked.”

He adds that if an unwanted guest was to sneak in unnoticed, they would still not gain access to the apartments. “Thankfully I’m not the only line of defense here. There’s also Henry. So if I don’t see him or I’m helping a resident with a luggage cart or whatever, Henry will stop him and ask if he can help him and ask him to sign into the log book.”

The value of a doorman in Manhattan is a nice perk to have given the rising rate of burglaries in the city. Oftentimes, guests may overlook or ignore their doormen which could have an emotionally tolling effect on them. Portelli is thankful for working in a big building because of this.

“Yeah it is, but since it is a big building, I don’t feel lonely because I always have people coming and going. But for smaller buildings, I am sure that would be the case. Before this job, I worked in a smaller building on the weekends and that was very lonely. You’re sitting there for an hour and a half and there’s not one soul.”

Brandon Portelli opens the front entrance door for a guest. [Photo: Mike Merolle]

Astrid Rosenthal, a resident of the building since 1999, said, “Brandon is a very kind person. Every day he tries to speak Spanish with me because he is trying to learn the language. I’m very happy that he works almost every morning because he is always in a good mood no matter the time of day. He is one of the best there is.”