Last week we lost a dear friend and old contributor at Gothamist, Ben Chappel. We wanted to take a moment to remember the work he did and the wonderful person he was.

When Ben first started here, he interviewed Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls. After he got back from their meeting, he sent us a photo of him and her and explained that there would be no interview. The two became friends instead. That's what Ben was like: he befriended a lot of people throughout his life, it was hard not to be drawn in by his magnetic personality.

Ben also wrote a series of party posts for us called Partying and Posturing, which are available here. Notably, he conducted an amazing interview with one of his idols, Errol Morris, which you can read here.

Absolutely original and irreplaceable, we expected the city to stop when we found out he had passed away.

We will miss you everyday, Ben.