Eric Vandercar: Lives remembered

Eric Vandercar had a 20-year friendship with Mark Rechler, a Long Island architect and musician. But it didn't start out that way.

They met when Vandercar "shushed" him at a concert. Rechler was making noise and Vandercar, a taper, needed quiet around him to get the best recording possible.

But once they started running into each other at seemingly every concert, the friendship took off. "He was a great guy. Really smart. A meticulous dude," Rechler said.

Vandercar, 53, lived in Bedford Hills with his wife, Jill, his son and his daughter. He worked at Morgan Stanley for 27 years before joining Chicago-based Mesirow Financial as a senior managing director of international sales and trading at the firm's New York office last March.

He was the quiet one growing up on Lori Street in Poughkeepsie, a tight knit neighborhood where the names of kids on the block roll off the tongue decades later. Robert Gropper, a neighbor, and Vandercar were born four days apart — meaning some years there was good-natured competition for prime birthday party dates.

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