Guardian of the secrets of the city

Meet Tony. Tony operates on 86th Street between Park and Madison in New York. His real name is Carlos, but he changes it when he gets south of Spanish Harlem on his way to work. It's easier that way, smoother, more straightforward. It's got an easy ring to it. It trips off the tongue. Tony. As if his name alone acknowledges the fact that he becomes someone else everyday, refined, discreet, proper.

Meet Tony. Tony operates on 86th Street between Park and Madison in New York. His real name is Carlos, but he changes it when he gets south of Spanish Harlem on his way to work. It's easier that way, smoother, more straightforward. It's got an easy ring to it. It trips off the tongue. Tony. As if his name alone acknowledges the fact that he becomes someone else everyday, refined, discreet, proper.

Tony is that rare New York specimen – a doorman, the guardian of the secrets behind all those fancy doors in the wealthier parts of Manhattan.

At first Tony seems like an ordinary bloke with an ordinary job. Fifty-something years old. Puerto Rican originally. A little tyre around the waist, more bicycle than truck. A little corduroy-wave of grey in the hair. A good comb-over, but you wouldn't know it unless it was a windy Sunday. A twinkle in the darkest part of his eye, still able to electrify the ladies. He loves these summer days when the girls float by and he's nothing to do but watch them – he steps out and he looks like he's floating too, out there in front of the building in his comfortable shoes and his doorman's uniform, his polyester suit with the tacky piping and the way-too-comfortable shoes.

Right next door is a plastic surgeon's office and Tony loves to watch the women come and go, especially those who get breast surgery. "It's like they arrive on an old bicycle, man," he says, "and they leave on a motorbike."

Tony is old enough to be harmless, handsome enough to be dangerous. A little hip swivel. Like he's saying: Watch this space, girls, even in retro. Yeah, he likes this job on those warm days, when he can stand outside and hide his cupped cigarette from the residents, but winter's a stone bitch, it's got no charm, in they come, all hats and scarves, dragging the snow over the goddamn floor, and it's time for the mop, and who the hell ever gave me this life?

He collects packages. He allows visitors through. Every now and then he gets a little tip for opening the door of a taxi. He also makes an extra few bob by looking out for those other uniforms, the metre maids. Every time they approach the cars parked out front, Tony hops out the front door and stuffs a few quarters into any of the resident's cars, and rescues them from a parking ticket.

And what you don't know about Tony is what Tony knows about you – what every other doorman in New York knows about every other tenant that passes his way.

***

When I first came to New York I was fascinated by these characters. They seemed like New World butlers, or badly-dressed Admiral Nelsons, standing just inside the doorways of fancy buildings. They seem like odd pieces of human furniture at first, but the longer you live in New York the more you realise how indispensable – and potentially lethal – these gentlemen can be.

They're certainly not the CIA or the FBI , though in the increasingly Orwellian culture of America they could be. They know what time you wake. What time you go to bed. How much you drink from the amount of bottles left in your recycle bin. Who got a visit from the cops. Which of your kids is at a drug rehab centre. How much you tip. Who stayed overnight. Who doesn't pick up their dogshit in little plastic baggies. Who's having an affair. Whose mother-in-law is on the prowl. Who doesn't tip at Christmas time.

All along Park, Madison, Fifth and the other fancy avenues of the city, they're the gatekeepers, gossip mongers, fixers, weathermen, sportscasters, psychologists to the wealthy of the city. Newspaper reporters love them. Delivery boys hate them. They are the lightening rod of a building. Piss the doorman off and you won't get a taxi. You may not get your FedEx package. He might not be friendly with your hangover. He might plant a word or two in a neighbour's ear.

Traditionally it's an Irish job and it's incredible to hear the accents on the doors as you walk down Park Avenue – Leitrim, Derry, Cork, Dublin -- although increasingly it's a job dominated by Latinos and Eastern Europeans.

Heavily unionised and one of the last male bastions in the city, the doormen are, in fact, the custodians of public space and history. They set the mood. They calm the atmosphere. They can also set off Molotov cocktails among the Miss Manners elite. They're the legitimate street-corner boys. While it may seem that they spend a lot of their lives just hanging around, the job requires a sense of discipline, savvy, and the ability to interpret people in a split-second.

And if you're Tony, an ability to appreciate every goodlooking girl that goes by, and maybe even whistle, not so loud that people get offended, and yet not so tamely that right girls don't know. It's an art and not everyone has it, but Tony does. When the day is finished and he's back up in Spanish Harlem, Tony becomes Carlos again. He sings in a cabaret band. He flings his heart about. He smokes his cigarettes freely. He curses and sings in Spanish and unravels until he has to become Tony again, legislating an altogether different part of the world…