Empire State Building suing East Village photographer for topless photo shoot

[Photo by Allen Henson]

The Empire State Building management has filed a $1.1 million lawsuit against East Village resident Allen Henson for taking photos of a topless Shelby Carter on the skyscraper's 86th floor observatory last Aug. 9.

According to the lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court, his actions "were unlawful … and caused ESB damage to its business and its reputation as a safe and secure family friendly tourist attractions."

In addition, ESB officials said that they had to "divert management time, resources and attention to deal with the inappropriate objectionable conduct and potentially dangerous situation the defendant created."

The building's management is asking for a total of $1.1 million in damages and a court order barring Henson from returning to the building.

We asked Henson if he could say anything on the record about the lawsuit.

"Yes, they're being ridiculous."

(The Daily News has more on the lawsuit here.)

Last July, Henson photographed Cheyenne Lutek dining topless at Verso on Avenue C … as well as the Sushi Lounge. (A bit of a coincidence that both restaurants are now closed?)

Previously on EV Grieve:
Female diner decides to go topless last night at Verso

[NSFW] About the topless diner at Verso Sunday night

[NSFW] About the topless diner at Verso Sunday night

As first mentioned here, two diners entered Verso, the Italian bistro on Avenue C and East Eighth Street, on Sunday night ... the female diner sat down and removed her top. She sat bare chested while the man with her took photos. Owner Labinot Baraliu promptly asked the two to leave.

Here's more about what happened.

East Village-based professional photographer Allen Henson contacted us. He was in Verso with Cheyenne Lutek, a model.

"It was an impromptu photoshoot. We did two that night," he said. "The first establishment loved it and interacted, the other, well — we weren't there long."

Here are the results of the first restaurant, which declined to have its name used with the photos. "They had fun with it. So did the patrons."



And here are images from Verso...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Female diner decides to go topless last night at Verso

Art Around the Park

Spotted this morning in Tompkins Square Park.

In case you wanted to see Shalom Harlow flash her breasts on the Bowery

And now, turing to other important news stories... a reader sent us a link to Egostatic, which noted that model Shalom Harlow (who used to live on the Bowery) flashed the camera during a photoshoot ... on the corner of the Bowery and East Third Street...

As if the Bowery didn't have enough boobs these days... of course, a few of the shots are NSFW, depending on where you work...

Boob job

11th Street and Third Avenue this morning.

Love and human remains

We're talking about Courtney Love again for some reason. On Wednesday, Gothamist linked to a Q-and-A that Love did with Heeb. (In case you missed the East Village portion of the interview, I excerpted a portion of it below.) So maybe she'll move back to NYC. (Alex at Flaming Pablum has an opinion on this topic.)

All this Love talk brought me back to the tabloids and blogs recreating her magical evening in NYC on March 17, 2004, when, among other things, she hit a dude on the head with a mic stand, flashed her boobies and got arrested, though not necessarily in that order. Some flashing happened at Wendy's on 14th Street just west of Union Square. Where the photo above was snapped. The dude posing near her breast is Kofi Asare. But what I want to know: Who is the fellow on the right? Where is he today? And why is Love wearing white before Memorial Day?

So here's the end of the interview between Karen Bookatz and Love from Heeb:

Thanks.
Oh, and I have a question, totally off of the topic. In terms of real estate, like, a Williamsburg girl like you, what do you think about that West Village, um, thing that Gwyneth and Scarlett said? I mean, do you think that like, okay, this is going to sound retarded: Am I too famous to live in the West Village? Or, is it OK?

Um, the West Village is like, really awesome, and like really beautiful and quaint. Like who else lives there? Liv [Tyler] and Sarah Jessica [Parker]. . .
Kyle [Maclaughlin] lives there, Michael [Stipe] lived there. Now he lives in SoHo, but Julie, well she’s not famous. Doesn’t Drew [Barrymore] live there?

I thought she lived in the East Village. I lived in the East Village for three years, and I used to see Drew and Chloë [Sevigny]. . .
The East Village is so funny now. I mean, in the ’80s, the East Village was really scary. Now it’s like a trustafarian Disneyland.

Yeah, that’s why I sort of moved out. But for your purposes, the West Village is cool.
My purposes are to be safe. I don’t have to go out every fucking night.