A sad day in New York – Gossip guru Baird Jones dead at 53.

“..A friend of his told the Daily News that Jones, the son of People magazine co-founder Cranston Jones, recently complained about being “sick as a dog.”

I knew Baird Jones, in fact he came to my wedding 16 years ago.  I met my wife at one of his parties, at the Pyramid Club in 1989, that’s why he came to the wedding in the first place.  Hadn’t seen him much afterwards – from time to time I’d see a clip on some of Baird Jones antics in the news, and he had achieved a celebrity for himself that always seemed in search of.

The last time I ran into him was at an Art Opening in Chelsea about 8 months ago – I had not seen him much lately, but used to hang out at his parties on the lower east side in the late eighties.

Arnoult/WireImage -Baird Jones

I know a very bad flu has been making the rounds this year – and Baird Jones did look kinda puffy, so I guess can suppose what that is all about – or perhaps he caught the flu and just did not have the strength to fight it off.

And Baird Jones represented a part of New York that really died with him, I suspect, the parties he created and hosted, the kind of stuff that went over well then, but since got lost, because so many other promoters copied him.