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Daniel Edward Rosen

By Daniel Edward Rosen 8/05/12 6:02pm

Doucherrari

Screen shot 2012-08-06 at 8.41.52 AM

Is Line Snob Co-Founder The Ferrari Snob Who Ran Over Cop’s Foot?

A video has hit the Internet today detailing perhaps the douchiest interaction between a Ferrari owner and an NYPD officer’s foot to ever happen outside the Mercer Hotel.

The owner of the $257,000 red Ferrari 458, Julien Chabbott, accused of the foot smashing, could very well be the same man who co-founded the fittingly named “Line Snob” smartphone app (which aims to “tackle” waiting in lines—or crush it with a coupe tire). Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 6/29/12 8:00am

Gatsbabies

Tabber Benedict (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

“Gatsbaby” Tabber Benedict Was Involved in 2011 DWI Accident in The Hamptons

The Observer has learned that Tabber Benedict, one of the three men featured in this weeks’ cover story on Gatsbabies, has something in common with Jay Gatsby that’s a little less charming than his wardrobe and extravagant lifestyle.

Mr. Benedict, a 35-year-old attorney who runs his own fledgling law practice, is facing charges of aggravated vehicular assault, leaving the scene of the accident, and driving while intoxicated for the 2011 Fourth of July accident in which he is accused of hitting a bicyclist while driving a 2011 GMC Acadia on the Montauk Highway. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 6/27/12 8:00am

An Unbroken Series of Successful Gestures

(Jason Seiler)

Meet The Gatsbabies! Preening Prepsters Lure Ladies, Lucre and Limelight in Merry Manhattan

The girls, so many girls, dressed in pastel-colored wraps that bared shoulders and the swells of their cleavage, clacked their Louboutin heels up a SoHo staircase one muggy May evening.

At the landing, visibly breathless and sweaty, their eyes lit up. They had entered the penthouse loft of Edward Scott Brady, the boyishly handsome world traveler, former classical cello virtuoso and “retired entrepreneur,” who was throwing a “Welcome Back Bash” to honor his return from his seventh trip around the globe. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 5/04/12 11:15am

The Transom

Frank

Another Round, Always: Drinking with The Drunkest (and Bestest) Bartender In New York

We think we found the drunkest bartender in Manhattan.

The Transom feels confident in this assertion, as we have seen our fair share of Manhattan dive bars since 10th grade.

When we first met Frank Mortagua on a sunny Saturday afternoon he was behind the bar at the Tribeca lushing den Nancy Whiskey. Dressed in his trademark gray tattered Hugo Boss sweatshirt, he had a pair of wire framed sunglasses perched low on the bridge of his nose. He was also pouring a bottle of Budweiser into a small beer glass, another customary trait of Frank the bartender.

“I’m not the boss,” he said, pointing to the “Boss” on his sweatshirt. He then stole a sip of his beer —as he would throughout the day, always leaving a few dollops of beer foam on his Don Quixote-esque mustache.

“He’s either at this side of the bar or the other,” said Bob Cendella, a painter who has immortalized Mr. Mortagua—and Nancy Whiskey’s loyal fanbase of blue collar workers and bohemians— in two murals that hang on the bar’s walls.

Whatever side of the bar he is on, Mr. Mortagua will still be drinking with you. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 4/04/12 1:20pm

Daily Transom

Sally Hershberger sprays a divorcee

Divorce Courting: Adventures at the First Ever “Start Over Smart” Divorce Expo

The first woman The Transom met at the divorce expo was an attractive dental hygienist from Staten Island who once walked in on her then-husband as he was engaged in a ménage à trois with her two best friends.

“Most girls would have really been devastated,” said Lisa Slayback, a bubbly 33-year-old with flowing blond hair and a perky smile. “I just went out and slept with somebody he worked with.” Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 3/28/12 9:50am

Star Power

Sean Christopher Ali Stone at a press conference in Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 17 (ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

The Son Also Kneels: Hanging with Oliver Stone’s Kid Sean, Newly Minted Muslim

Oliver Stone was deplaning at LAX following a 16-hour trip from Indonesia when he turned on his phone and found it blowing up with texts from his office. Apparently the media—what he called the “paparazzi”—had been in touch. They wanted to ask him about his son, Sean.

In particular, they wanted to know what he thought of Sean’s decision to become a Muslim. Oliver instructed his office to decline comment. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 2/01/12 2:15am

Cop Shot

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly at Bellevue Hospital Center Tuesday Night

Officer Kevin Brennan Survives Gunshot Wound to Skull

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was cradling in his hands a plastic container holding a .22 slug that had just been extracted out of the base of the skull of Officer Kevin Brennan, the second member of his department to be shot in the head while in the line of duty in the past two months.

The commissioner’s face was stoic, betraying no emotion to the assembled members of the print and television media gathered in the lobby of Bellevue Hospital Center late Tuesday night. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11/30/11 10:24am

art crime

427 Washington Street.

The Scoundrel of Washington Street: Is Mihaly Kovacsezics the Mayor of Tribeca or a Sticky Fingered Art Thief?

If you ask the well-heeled residents of the western-most parts of Tribeca what they think of Mihaly Kovacsezics, the kindly Hungarian immigrant who painted their walls, installed their televisions or, in some cases, managed their lives, they’ll tell you he was the most adorable and bighearted man in Manhattan.

And at 427 Washington Street, where, from 2007 to 2010, he worked as the handyman for artist and building owner Shirley West, Mr. Kovacsezics—better known as Mike—was everything to everyone in the co-op building: a dog-walker, a personal shopper, a bag-carrier.

At Ponte’s, an Italian restaurant where Mr. Kovacsezics worked as a contractor for 10 years, he was the good-natured handyman who performed odd jobs and enjoyed the occasional espresso at the restaurant’s bar.

“Everyone loved him here,” said Ileana Romero, a Ponte’s bartender. “He was sweet and he was very kind.”

To Shirley West’s niece, Mr. Kovacsezics was like a member of the family. “He was like the Mayor of Tribeca,” said Roxane West. “I loved him.” Read More