Baird Jones, the 53-year-old art and media gadfly, was found dead in his West 19th Street apartment by EMS workers last week, after authorities were alerted to possible problems by Jones' good friend Ken Emerson, the great-great-grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In life, Jones referred to himself as "the most famous man in New York," and the case could be reasonably argued. Jones had a clip file of his name appearing in the major newspapers and magazines, with citations numbering in the thousands. In an obsessive, stalker-esque quest for any kind of celebrity quotes or pictures, the Zelig-like man-about-town attended parties six nights a week for more than 35 years. His art collection represented his leanings, featuring celebrity pieces that numbered in the hundreds. Hanging on the walls of his 2,000-square-foot downtown loft are a Warhol and a Haring, side by side with the ghoulish works of his darker sub-collection of works by John Wayne Gacey, Jack Kevorkian, Ed Gein, Leni Reifenstall, Adolf Hitler, and more.

Jones worked closely with Page Six's Richard Johnson, as well as fellow gossips George Rush & Joanna Molloy, Cindy Adams, Liz Smith, Spencer Morgan, and Ben Widdicombe. Jones supplied these writers' columns with an endless stream of celebrity quotes which, more often than not, he garnered through the technique of combing foreign publications for obscure interviews with celebs, which he then would edit and repackage as his own material. (He admitted this to me personally.)

Jones spent his early childhood in Brazil, where his father was bureau chief for Time magazine. Jones went on to attend the prestigious Buckley school in Manhattan prior to graduating from Groton Academy in Massachusetts. He received an undergraduate degree from Columbia University, a law degree from NYU, and a masters in social work from Hunter College.

He is survived by his sister Abigail Jones who is a lawyer living in Los Angeles and works for Steven Spielberg.

Jones claimed that his sole heir is the fringe artist Steven Hooper, who is known for covering cars in plush fur and other esoteric materials. "Time Machine," his van covered in clocks, is his best known work (pictured below).