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Fans gather as news spreads at the speed of technology

Hundreds of fans, curiosity seekers and news crews gathered in front of Heath Ledger's home in SoHo on Tuesday night, spilling into the street as the police struggled to keep one lane open for traffic and roped off a sidewalk path to the door.

The noisy, restive crowd gathered quickly as word of Ledger's death was transmitted via phone calls, text messages, blogs, radio, television and Web sites. People used their cellphones to call friends and send photographs from the scene outside the actor's home, at 421 Broome St.

"I didn't expect to be in the center of all these cameras -- I just brought flowers," Jessica Farr, 19, an acting student, said as she was interviewed by television crews. She had read about the death on Facebook, she said.

"It felt like we had just seen an assassination," she said.

Taking pictures with his pocket digital camera, Doug Krantz, 27, a New York University student and Iraq war veteran, said: "I have a sick fascination with morbid stuff."

A video camera panned the crowd, and a friend apparently spotted Krantz on television.

"No way -- you saw me on TV?" Krantz said, talking on his mobile phone.

Nearby, a young woman was on her phone saying: "Watch ABC news. I was just standing in front of the camera."

The television coverage included crews from German, British and Spanish channels.

Jessica Roy, 19, a New York University journalism student, said she had met Ledger in the neighborhood, and she called his death "really sad." She said she had never seen such hubbub in SoHo.

A smaller crowd cropped up in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, outside the home where Ledger used to live with Michelle Williams, the mother of their child. Elliott Puckett, an artist in the neighborhood, said: "That's terrible. I used to see them with their dry cleaning and their baby. It's really sad."

Vanessa Yuille, 29, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who was also busy sending text messages, said: "It's a very instantaneous world."

Some people seemed bereft. A tearful Jennifer Rosner, 21, a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said she had been watching Sweeney Todd at a theater when her mother called with the news.

"She knew how much I loved him," Rosner said. "I was a really big fan of his; I loved him. I always dreamed of meeting him. I loved him so much. I'm really upset."

Rosner, who had removed a photo of Ledger from her bedroom, took it to the impromptu shrine at the entrance to his building.
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