Ann Coulter was leaving the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village at 3 a.m. when she was set upon by mob.
“They were animals, they were physical,” she said, recalling the group of nearly a dozen agitators who surrounded her and a man she was dating at the time five years ago.
“We walk back in and got a couple of the big black guys at Comedy Cellar and the four of us had to fight just to get in a cab.”
On another occasion, shortly after Donald Trump was elected president, she and a group of friends were met in the Village’s White Horse Tavern by a woman screaming repeatedly “Ann Coulter is a c–t!”
The moments — while harrowing — are not unusual for Coulter. The conservative firebrand, now 57, says the abuse goes with the territory outside of the Upper East Side where she keeps a pied-à-terre and now spends most of her time in New York. The phenomenon long predates the election of Trump and her once vocal support for him.
Long known for being one of the wealthiest enclaves of the city, the Upper East Side has a reputation for being more GOP-friendly than most famously liberal Manhattan neighborhoods. While Democrats still dominate elected offices, the UES sided against Bill de Blasio in 2013 and offered similar resistance in 2017, according to an analysis by the City University of New York.
‘Do not ever ever complain about your hate mail. You sound like a p—y, you sound like Paul Krugman. Nobody wants to hear about your hate mail’
“The Upper East Side is absolutely the best for right-wingers. Even the liberals in [here] will send me bottles of wine,” she said over a kale crunch salad and Diet Coke at the Beach Cafe.
Coulter is a regular at the neighborhood staple which first opened in 1968, sometimes hanging out there with longtime friend and Daily Beast columnist Lloyd Grove. You can also catch her at Elio’s Sunday evenings when she’s in town, where she is especially fond of the restaurant’s salty right-wing bartender Brian.
“Liberals on the Upper East Side paid $7 million for their apartments, they care what kind of world they live in. They are not lunatic antifa living with their mothers,” she said.
Culturally too, Coulter said the area is more her speed. While her presence drew a few scowls, far more noticeable were her vocal supporters. “I Love You Ann Coulter,” said a man pumping his fists. A stout bulldog named Mugsy also walked by for a head pat, which Coulter happily provided.
She also has an honorable mention for midtown.
“Midtown is fantastic, It’s like an airport. It’s all men with jobs,” she said. “Men with jobs like Ann Coulter.”
Coulter insists that she never lets the hate stop her from leaving her favorite neighborhood whenever she wants. And she has developed a number of strategies over the years to deal with random acts of abuse.
First and foremost she says, is not to complain about it — something she offered as free advice to all conservatives like herself.
“Do not ever ever complain about your hate mail. You sound like a p—y, you sound like Paul Krugman. Nobody wants to hear about your hate mail,” she said.
Coulter says she does her best to venture from the Upper East Side in groups.
She also eschews any obvious protection.
And while she still gets love from Trump superfans in NYC (there’s more than you think, she insists), Coulter remains cool on the man, who she has laced into in recent months over lack of progress on his long-promised border wall and other issues.
“We’re doomed,” she said when asked about him. “That may be the title of my next book. “F–k it, we’re doomed.”