Profile

Prince of the City

QUINCY JONES
Music producer and founder of Vibe magazine

I've known the Kennedys for the past 40 years, since I campaigned for Jack, and I watched John grow up to be a man. The last time I saw him was at Nobu, and we kidded around about our magazines. Like him, I had decided to start a magazine, and we made fun of the fact that we were both outsiders to this business. At Nobu, he leaned over and whispered in my ear if I knew what a wet test was. I laughed. Turns out it's some circulation thing, but I told him it was a treatment for venereal disease. What was most impressive about him was that he didn't have the swagger, the limos, the whole celebrity trip he could have had. I know people who've had a No. 13 record who've had more attitude than he did.

WICKHAM BOYLE
Friend and neighbor

He lived here a long time -- he didn't just show up when we got a dry cleaner, and that counts for a lot in TriBeCa. In 1986, I wandered into a small café called Bubby's on Hudson and N. Moore, and I saw somebody else, facing away from me, who had a big bike chain, and I said, "Wow, you got a big chain there," and he turned around and I was so embarrassed that he thought I was coming on to him. But we bonded over who had the better chain and whose bike had been stolen more times. We ended up meeting often there, locking our bikes to the same pole, getting the same blueberry muffins.

The last time I saw him was last week as I was coming back from yoga class. I literally ran into him. He spilled his newspapers and George; I spilled my magazines, including my magazine, Code. We exchanged magazines. I said, "What did you do to your leg?" He said, "I did it parasailing." I said, "Okay, I'll bite -- what can you bump into parasailing?" He said, "A tree," and we laughed. I said, "So, hey, what's the deal with the daredevil thing?" and he said, "Wait a second. You just came tearing the wrong way down a one-way street crashing into me, and you weren't wearing a helmet."

DON SCHUCK
Neighbor

One night, my son and I were standing in front of John's building shooting the breeze with someone who lived in the building. And suddenly, John came back from a run and he stood outside his place stretching, and my son pointed as he leaned over and reached for his keys from a hiding place under the stoop and went inside. And he said, "Dad, that's so cool! I can't believe he just leaves his keys there!" After that, it was his little secret that he knew where John kept his keys: right there under his stoop. I actually checked this morning. The keys are gone now.

Reported by Sarah Bernard, Maura Egan, Ken Frydman, Jeremy Gerard, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Neil Hirschfeld, Beth Landman Keil, David D. Kirkpatrick, Robert Kolker, Marion Maneker, Deborah Mitchell, Jennifer Senior, Sally Singer, Ethan Smith, Eric Todrys, Michael Tomasky, and Jared White.