Did Anderson Cooper Find New Pole To Slide Down?

Hang on to your britches children because the gay gossip mills are beginning to gush and grind about increasingly muscular CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper and his muscle Mary man-friend Antoine "Ben" Maisani snatching up a very butch firehouse on West Third Street in New York City's Greenwich Village.

These roiling real estate rumors of Misters Cooper and Maisani–who recently vacationed together in India where they holed up at the insanely expensive Rambagh Palace in Jaipur–purchasing Fire Patrol House #2 seems to have first found legs a few days ago on the New York City-centric gossip site Gawker. A little digging around on the interweb and Your Mama located an old New York Times listing for the firehouse cum alleged love nest which the Gawker folks referenced in their fun little expose about the sometimes mustachioed Mister Maisani, a co-owner of a naughty East Village gay bar called Eastern Bloc who, apparently, does not always feel compelled to wear a shirt when he goes to work.

Listing information for the four and some story firehouse shows it was listed at $4,750,000, measures a considerable 8,420 square feet, and still has its original brass poles, circular stairs, a herringbone brick floor and a two-story detached building that was once used as a stable. Further investigation turns up property record information that reveals the firehouse was sold in early September of 2009 for $4,300,000. The buyer(s)–listed only as Firepatrol, LLC c/o of a well known celebrity money manager whose name appears on deeds for folks like Lisa Loeb, Ethan Hawke and Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany–are not named in the deeds and documents.

Keep in mind children, all this firehouse bizness is just rumor and gossip until someone snaps a photo of Misters Cooper and Maisani moving their mountain bikes, matching Fred Perry polos, and Soloflex machines into the building. Until then, Your Mama presumes that Mister Cooper, who reportedly rakes in $4,000,000 a year from CNN, will continue to bed down in his architect designed doo-plex penthouse on New York's West 38th Street and Mister Maisani will head home his own apartment which as best as we can tell is on E. 3rd Street, which happens to be very near where Your Mama used to live a lifetime ago.