At YOur Door: The doormen of new york city

An exhibition of photography by Alina Gozin'a

This exhibition of photography by Alina Gozin'a captures a quintessential aspect of New York and in particular, the world-famous doorman culture. It also reflects Alina’s lifelong interest in telling the stories of people without a voice.  The city’s doormen are the gatekeepers to Manhattan’s elite - this series takes viewers inside the city’s grandest buildings to see behind their firmly closed doors.  Doormen typically know the most personal details and well-guarded secrets of their tenants. Yet rarely are they really seen or their own stories shared.  Rather than once again profiling the city’s rich and famous, the artist wanted to shine a light on these fascinating invisible characters who keep Manhattan turning.  

“Like sentries, doormen have patrolled New York’s apartment buildings for some 150 years. They are arguably the most iconic and the most underrated powerful personalities in New York City real estate, often playing a role that's midway between building security and therapist. Guarding the entrance to buildings and serving as the unofficial social anthropologists of New York’s most privileged, the doormen are filled with anecdotes of human behaviour: they know what their tenants eat, whether they drink too much and if they have kinky sex. But while the doormen have access to intensely personal information about their residents’ lives and are the gatekeepers of their secrets, the inhabitants tend to know little about the personal lives of their doormen.” 

— Peter Bearman, author of 'Doormen'

The story of The Doormen