Famed Restaurateur’s Son Dies in Freak Escalator Accident at Madison Square Garden
‘FRIEND TO MANY’
The son of the owner of an iconic New York City restaurant died in a bizarre accident involving an escalator over the weekend, officials said. Sources told the New York Post on Thursday that after a Rangers hockey game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, Ernest Vogliano Jr. had been riding what the newspaper called an “escalator railing” when he suffered a fatal fall. Vogliano plunged two to three stories to his death, the sources said. Police responding to a 911 call of an injured person found Vogliano “unconscious and unresponsive with severe head trauma,” a spokesperson said. The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has since ruled Vogliano’s death an accident, attributing it to blunt force trauma. An attorney for Vogliano’s widow told the Post, “We know that he was there and we know that he died. We’d like to find out how.” Vogliano, 61, was the son of the longtime owner of Il Vagabondo, an Italian haunt in Manhattan once favored by Cindy Crawford. He was also “a friend to many” and loved “horses, beekeeping, skiing, and hockey,” according to an online obituary.