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John Hughes's Manhattan Death Shrine Revealed
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 13, 2009
Modified Aug 13, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 13, 2009
Modified Aug 13, 2009
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None of the reports about director John Hughes's death specified exactly where in Manhattan he collapsed from a heart attack, and you can see conspiracy theories already sprouting on the internets, with one Hollywood Elsewhere commenter wondering, "I have been trying to discover WHERE in Manhattan he dropped dead since the day he died... Is he, in fact, not even dead yet? I'm not entirely joking." Well, Movie Line has just pinpointed where he passed away on the morning of August 6th: 60 West 55th Street, outside Alain Ducasse’s brasserie Benoit; there is now a small shrine with a photograph of Hughes and sixteen candles on the sidewalk. But that's probably not going to satisfy Michael Wolff, who's written a provocative essay titled "Who Killed John Hughes," which posits: "Certain deaths do something weird to the media mind and temperament. John Hughes, a maker of what are essentially genre slapstick films, has, by his early death the other day, become a great auteur and, as well, a saint, without anyone seeming to be remotely nosy about the strange circumstances of his life and untimely end... So, come on, what happened to the guy?" Let us know who you think killed Hughes, preferably IN ALL CAPS.
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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