For 14 years, PAT SALVAGGIONE has watched the world go by from the 58th Street entrance of Bergdorf Goodman, helping customers with packages and finding them taxis. For 30 years before that, he did the same cheerful doorman's duty at Bonwit Teller. He refused repeated entreaties from Bergdorf's until Bonwit Teller closed its Fifth Avenue store in 1979.
 
This afternoon, Bergdorf's colleagues and clients plan to gather and raise a glass of Champagne to send him into retirement.
 
Oh, the stories he could tell about the people whose parcels he has carried and the limousine doors he has opened. But when asked yesterday to recount some recollections, he said only: "I can't name names of people I've come in contact with. If I mention one and not everyone else, the others will get insulted. It's not fair."
 
Other people are willing to talk.
 
"He is a person of renown," said STEPHEN ELKIN, president of the store. He said that when you hail a taxi at the store, "invariably the driver starts telling you what a wonderful person Pat is."
 
"He's been invited to people's weddings, to their homes, attended their significant parties," he said. "They have lent him their houses at the lake and beach. When Bonwit Teller was taken down, Donald Trump gave Pat the door handle."