CORNELIUS SKY

A doorman at a posh apartment building gets lost in the mean New York City streets, battling his demons as he searches for life's higher meaning.

Cornelius Sky is a doorman in a posh Fifth Avenue apartment building that houses New York City's elite, including a former First Lady whose husband was assassinated while in office. It is 1974 and New York City is heading toward a financial crisis.
At work, Connie prides himself on his ability to buff a marble floor better than anyone, a talent that so far has kept him from being fired for his drinking. He pushes the boundaries of his duties, partying and playing board games with the former First Lady's lonely thirteen-year-old son in the service stairwell - the only place where the boy is not spied upon mercilessly by the tabloid press and his Secret Service detail.

Connie believes he is the only one who can offer the boy true solace and companionship. But at home, his wife and sons are furious at him and can't take another minute of his antics. Connie is haunted by memories of his troubled childhood, and the worse things are at home, the more attached he gets to the fatherless boy.

When Connie's wife changes the locks, he finds himself wandering the mean streets of the city in his doorman's uniform, where he encounters unlikely angels who offer him a path toward redemption.

Cornelius Sky is an elegant picaresque that beautifully captures a city on the edge of ruin, from its richest and most privileged heights, to its poorest and most depraved corners.


TIMOTHY BRANDOFF received a BA from Goddard College and an MFA from New York University. His fellowships include the Sundance Screenwriters' Lab, the Chesterfield Writer's Film Project, the Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. Cornelius Sky was a runner-up for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Brandoff operates a bus for New York City Transit.