Former Beatle linked to member of M.T.A.

It would seem improbable for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to be fodder for the British tabloids. But the London newspapers were in a tizzy yesterday with reports that Paul McCartney was having a romantic relationship with Nancy Shevell, who was appointed by Gov. George E. Pataki to the authority’s board in 2001.

Mr. McCartney, the former Beatle, is getting divorced from his second wife, Heather Mills McCartney. Ms. Shevell is the chairwoman of the authority’s committee that oversees capital construction, planning and real estate. Most notably, she plays an important oversight role for the Second Avenue subway project, whose cost is estimated at $5 billion for its first phase.

While news reports noted that Ms. Shevell was married, her husband, Bruce A. Blakeman, a Republican lawyer and member of the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said in an e-mail message: “I am legally separated from Nancy. The separation is amicable and mutual.”

The Sun, a British tabloid, reported that Ms. Shevell, 47, and Mr. McCartney, 65, spent last weekend together in the Hamptons. It said they ate at an East Hampton restaurant on Friday, visited each other’s homes on Saturday, and embraced before breakfast at a cafe on Sunday.

There were similar articles in other British news media, including The Telegraph, a conservative broadsheet, and The Mirror, a tabloid.

Ms. Shevell, a graduate of Arizona State University, is a vice president of her family’s businesses, New England Motor Freight, of Elizabeth, N.J., and the Shevell Group of Companies. She is a breast cancer survivor. (Mr. McCartney’s first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998.)

Until recently, Ms. Shevell was known as Nancy Shevell Blakeman. Mr. Blakeman is also a Pataki appointee, having been named to the Port Authority in 2001. He is a partner at Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman, Eisman, Greenberg, Formato & Einiger in Lake Success, N.Y., and was majority leader of the Nassau County Legislature from 1996 to 1999.

The Blakemans have given contributions to Governor Pataki and President Bush.

A woman who answered the phone yesterday at a Manhattan residence of the Blakemans said no one was available for comment. Paul Freundlich, a spokesman for Mr. McCartney, said in an e-mail message, “We don’t comment on Paul’s private and personal or business affairs.”

Mr. McCartney’s divorce from Heather Mills McCartney has been a messy and public affair. The couple announced their separation last year. In a televised interview widely distributed on the Internet, she said last week that she had contemplated suicide because of the negative public attention.