BUILDING MATERIAL

A Park Avenue doorman reflects on the path that led to his transformation into an observer and writer.

Bronx native Bruno grew up in a working-class household dominated by a strict Nuyorican Pentecostal father. High school in Manhattan became an escape from his parents’ disapproval and religious extremism with its mix of interesting people and pretty girls—one of whom kept a diary that disgraced him and his family when her mother found its explicit record of their sexual relations. Bruno fought his parents to attend college outside the city, only to get expelled his junior year for sneaking into the cafeteria after hours. He immediately moved in with a group of college misfits, one of whom invited him to Minnesota and introduced him to the cousin who became his girlfriend. Bruno returned to NYC, took a summer job as a Park Avenue doorman, then returned to Minnesota and a crumbling relationship. When a rare job as a full-time doorman unexpectedly dropped into his lap, he was unwilling at first to leave his girlfriend but finally decided he would use the money he earned to resume his education more seriously and “take control of my story” by becoming a writer. (The girlfriend drops out of his story after that.) In between opening doors, running elevators, and catering to the whims of the wealthy tenants he sometimes lampoons in the book, Bruno finished an English degree at John Jay College and began an MFA at Hunter College. Yet the most significant lessons Bruno learned, he writes, came from his job. As a doorman, he was a gatekeeper charged with protecting the rich against everything from dogs that defecated on the lobby floor to the vagrants and panhandlers who served as living reminders of wealth inequality. Candid and always animated, his memoir offers a unique perspective on achieving the American dream that is as timely as it is refreshing.

Engaging reading.