Founder of the Tribeca watering-hole boutique Bikini Bar fell to his death from the fifth floor of the business's location at 148 Duane Street last night. 48-year-old Stuart Robert Smith was found by a passerby and declared dead at the scene from what appears to be an accident. According to the shop's website, Smith was a former Navy diver who surveyed sunken ships from World War II and the idea for Bikini Bar arose from his love of the ocean. Smith's wife, fashion designer Aileen Oser, tells the Post that her husband liked going to a garden on the roof to "look at the sky."
The couple met on a flight to New York City, were married at the Statue of Liberty, and opened Bikini Bar in 1997. "We were soulmates," Oser said, "I don't know what I'm going to do without him." According to DNAinfo the Medical Examiner will determine Smith's cause of death.
