Weekend Column: Mystery Doorman Becomes International Sensation

By Mildred Alpern

The entrance to my apartment building was awash with morning light. The June sun streamed through the filigreed cast iron door and splashed on an adjacent wall. The doorman on guard was silhouetted in sharp outline and then replicated in dim shadow on the wall. The scene evolved in an array of sepia tones.

“Stop for a moment,” I requested the doorman and camera ready, aimed my lens at his figure in the mix of light and muted shadow play.

On my computer screen his portrait evoked mystery, subtle drama,  and metamorphosis. Over the course of this past summer, I submitted the image to four juried gallery exhibitions in Vermont, South Carolina, Oregon and Rome, Italy. (The Metamorphosis exhibit at the Darkroom Gallery in Vt., the Contemporary Portrait exhibit at the SE Center for Photography in South Carolina, the Photo Shoot: 2018 at the Black Box Gallery in Oregon, and the Shadows exhibit at the Loosen Art Gallery in Rome.) The portrait was accepted in all of the gallery exhibits which were curated by prominent jurors. Loosen Art Gallery even informed me that my image was chosen from among the 778 images that had been submitted.

So who is this mystery man traveling the United States from coast to coast and now crossing the Atlantic Ocean for an exhibition in Rome? He is the doorman of 575 West End Avenue, Lulzim Prelvukas from Kosovo, known to me as Luis.

Married with two children, he has been employed at 575 WEA since the year 2000 and he delights in his work assisting tenants and their families, watching children grow up, and even posing for my camera shots. He praises the management of the building, an Italian Renaissance design by Gaetano Ajello, constructed in 1915 and  dramatic with its high storied entrance captured in the multiple-exhibitions photo.