On Tuesday, local authorities reported that event planner Bryan Jacobson had been found dead outside his Greenwich Village apartment on Monday night. Jacobson, owner of the eponymous planning firm (formerly known as Corporate Events Manhattan), apparently leaped to his death, leaving a suicide note behind in his 14th-floor home. According to a neighbor questioned by The New York Post, Jacobson was "definitely depressed. His event planning business wasn’t doing well, and that might have been part of it."
While noted in mainstream press for having planned the wedding of Robert De Niro's son in 2008, Jacobson had established a reputation in the event industry more than a decade earlier. Starting with Corporate Events Manhattan in 1997, Jacobson worked with corporate clients on events including an ad campaign kickoff for Nissan in 2002, a pre-Grammy awards party for singer Pink in 2003, and a Roman-themed holiday function for the Corcoran Group in 2006.
On his Web site clients such as the North Shore Animal League praised Jacobson for his professionalism and "creative eye." Gary Winkler, director of events and special projects for the Times Square Alliance wrote in 2009 that "your design transformed an average room into a beautiful spectacle," and Small Luxury Hotels of the World vice president of worldwide sales Jon D. Makhmaltchi said Jacobson's "constant diligence and day-to-day contact producing these events made our company confident we were in the right hands."
