Sir Paul needs her, but so does New York City transit

NEW YORK - Nancy Shevell beamed for hundreds of cameras in London's Leicester Square, a green silk jacket on one arm and Paul McCartney on the other. The 49-year-old trucking heiress dazzled on the red carpet at a movie premiere with the ex-Beatle, her boyfriend of 18 months.

Two days later, Shevell shielded herself behind a colleague, turning away from cameras recording a Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting where she cast a vote to raise city subway fares 25 percent.

Few who have seen Shevell photographed in Israel, Antigua, and at the Grammy Awards with McCartney know of her other life as an executive at a New Jersey trucking company and board member of the nation's largest mass transit agency.

But her public and behind-the-scene personas have collided more and more since the socialite began seeing McCartney in the Hamptons in late 2007.

Since January 2008, Shevell has missed four full board meetings, more than any voting member, according to MTA meeting minutes. Since early 2008, the unpaid appointee has the worst attendance of any voting board member.

"It is significant. The whole point of the board is to be a check and balance on the MTA's staff work. You've got to be physically present to do that," said Gene Russianoff, a New York City transit advocate. If members can't show up for meetings, he said, "they should resign."

Celebrity observers aren't surprised that Shevell's former private life is taking a back seat to McCartney, 66.

"Who can blame her?" said Peter Castro, deputy managing editor of People magazine. "How many of us would be happy at an MTA meeting versus stepping out onto the red carpet at a Grammy event with a living Beatle?"

Shevell, who didn't return messages seeking comment, is the vice president for administration of New England Motor Freight Inc., an Elizabeth, N.J., trucking company serving the Northeast and owned by her father, Myron P. Shevell. She was married for more than 20 years to attorney Bruce Blakeman, a close friend to former Gov. George Pataki, who appointed her to the MTA board. Barbara Walters is her cousin.

Shevell's public profile barely existed before photographs appeared in late 2007 of her and McCartney in the Hamptons on Long Island, where McCartney long vacationed with his wife Linda, who died from breast cancer in 1998.

"Nobody knew who she was," said Hamptons scene chronicler Steven Gaines, the coauthor of The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles. "She's like 25,000 other accomplished women out here in the Hamptons."

Since then, she's become a red-carpet staple, appearing at fashion shows by McCartney's daughter Stella, the Grammys, and McCartney concerts around the world.

The public has largely embraced the love story, especially McCartney fans disillusioned by the ex-Beatle's bitter breakup from his second wife, Heather Mills, Castro said. "Any person coming after that is going to get a lot of attention and scrutiny, because it's a soap opera."

Shevell hasn't given up her work or her unpaid seat on the MTA, the agency that oversees subways and buses for more than eight million New York riders, regional rails to the suburbs, and bridges and tunnels. Pataki appointed her in 2001 to a term that expires in 2011. She's one of 16 full board members.

The MTA defended Shevell's board service in a statement last week, calling her "an active board member since her appointment in 2001."

MTA board member Andrew Albert said Shevell's relationship with McCartney hadn't changed her performance at the MTA. "I think she's great," he said. "When she's there, she's conscientious and cares. . . . She'll decide when she can't do it anymore."