KING OF CLUBS
Velvet ropes cannot stop NY Doorman
It’s a Wednesday night at 11, and most people are getting ready for bed. But Michael Tommasiello is headed to work. Decked out in a Belstaff leather jacket, black jeans and $450 Adidas sneakers, the 5-foot-10 boy next door greets a woman named Ellie with a kiss on the cheek at the door of the Boom Boom Room at the Standard Hotel.
“So good to see you. I love that dress on you,” he sweet-talks the young blond manager, who turns away walk-ins like a goalie turns away weak slap shots. “What are your summer plans?” he adds politely.
Without flashing a Black Card or insulting her with a $20 bill, he gets his hands stamped and makes his way up the exclusive elevator.
“Being polite opens doors — and money only works in the movies,” Tommasiello says later, once he gets his Champagne and begins his night as NY Doorman — his alter ego as a socialmedia phenomenon and velvet-rope-jumper who documents his nightly partying with supermodels like Gigi Hadid and
Cara Delevingne for his 52,000 Twitter followers.
You can make money doing such things: The self-proclaimed “serial chiller” ditched his career in finance to pursue a full-time job as @NYDoorman on Twitter and Instagram. Now he gets paid up to $1,000 per post from brands like Perrier and Dom Perignon, which invite him to parties where he chronicles his life as a professional night owl — including product placements from his benefactors.
“Leonardo DiCaprio is at the R29 CFDA after party with Richie Akiva sitting in a corner with his newsboy cap,” he tweeted Tuesday night from the Boom Boom Room.
Other news tips include the time he spied on several Kardashians at Rose Bar, hung with Paris Hilton at Avenue and sat VIP at Lavo, where he’s downed shots with DJ Tiesto.
But he could never have unlocked New York’s cliquey nightlife without this key: He became pals with practically every doorman in the city.
“People talk down to them, but don’t realize how much power they actually have,” says Tommasiello.
Unlike Instagram sensations with cult followings like Josh “The Fat Jew” Ostrovsky and Elliot Tebele, the man behind F--- Jerry, who both parody pop culture, Tommasiello is famous for being anonymous, instead providing users with candid, unfiltered perspectives.
“Aziz Ansari pretending to laugh at something funny at Goldbar,” reads one @NYDoorman tweet about the celebrity comedian.
Tommasiello broke the news during Fashion Week last year of how Justin Bieber got rejected from the Electric Room, and he reported on how he waltzed right by Kim Kardashian’s bestie Simon Huck, who was stuck waiting in line at the trendy Surf Lodge in Montauk during Memorial Day weekend.
He’s come a long, long way.
“Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t fit in,” says the Long Island native, who went to Syracuse University, George Washington and Hofstra. He moved to the city at 22 and worked as a waiter. After his shift ended, he’d try to get into clubs and private events.
“I used to get the door slammed in my face,” adds Tommasiello, who was mortified when a bouncer at PH-D denied him entry in front of a group of girls four years ago. “The bouncer looked at me up and down and said the club was at capacity.”
Instead of cursing, he did homework: He Googled who the DJ was, asked if he could get on the guest list and looked up the dress code. He got in the next week.
He started going out every night and learned tricks like giving the bouncer at No. 8 a cigarette in exchange for entry. He learned to show up at Lavo without an all-male entourage. And while he waited to get in, he tweeted.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you change into your heels on line,” reads his first tweet, from May 2012, about a gal who wasn’t let into the strobe-lit rooftop PH-D at the Dream Hotel.
Eventually, he says, tourists started emailing him for advice on where to go.
“I was like, ‘Dude, I think you’re confusing me with Expedia.com,’” says Tommasiello.
Eventually, Tommasiello became so well known at the clubs that they started hiring him to tweet about his night out.
“He was (initially) a little awkward,” recalls promoter Cody Pruitt, who let Tommasiello into one of his first parties four years ago at the now-closed XIX lounge in Nolita. “He’s not a male model, he’s not a celebrity, he’s not a bottle buyer, but he was very sweet and respectful, so I invited him in.”
And he’s always part of the mix. The other night at Electric Room, two pretty young things practically threw themselves at him. The owner, Nur Khan, had greeted him with a glass of Champagne.
Even NY Doorman gets rejected now and again. “Sometimes Paul’s Baby Grand doesn’t let me in,” he shrugs, of the bar in Tribeca.
Good thing when one door closes, another one opens.
Growing up, I felt I didn’t fit in. I used to get the door slammed in
my face.