The target of a brawl at the staid New York City Athletic Club last spring slapped three drunken coat and tie bruisers and the club with a lawsuit for the vicious beat down he endured.
Member Andrew Haesler, 49, was at the exclusive Central Park club last April when “without just cause or provocation, he was the victim of an assault and contact” by two Long Island men—Peter Doran, 29, and Matthew O’Grady, 32—and Colin Drowica, 31, of the East Village, the Manhattan Supreme Court suit claims.
Doran allegedly walloped Haesler so hard he fractured his eye socket.
The Glen Head man was accused of throwing the first punch before his buddies joined in. They reportedly tried to flee the scene, but were stopped by police.
Haesler, of Stuyvesant Town, blames the 144-year-old venue for alleged “negligence, carelessness and recklessness” that allowed the three men to get drunk as skunks in its English-style Tap Room.
He sustained “severe injuries” that will require continued trips to the doctor, Haesler complains in court papers.
A dollar figure is not mentioned.
A blogger called “Wall Street Jackass” dubbed the April 13 fracas “the best fight I’ve ever seen.”
“Not sure the reason, but it seemed to be over a girl,” the blogger revealed.
The brawl turned the elite club space into a lion’s pit of broken noses and glasses, overturned tables and wrestling, business-suit clad fitness enthusiasts.
The last time the 8,600-member club faced a fight over the fairer sex was when the city intervened to force it to go coed in 1989.
Doran and O’Grady were charged with third-degree assault and second-degree harassment.
Doran is due back in Manhattan criminal court on April 17.
Drowica, a director at Knight Capital, got off with a desk appearance ticket.
The elite club faces another lawsuit by employers who alleged they were sexually harassed and called racial slurs by members and managers.
Neither the club nor the alleged aggressors immediately return calls for comment.