Park Central Hotel - New York City

The Park Central Hotel is located on 7th Avenue in New York City.  The historic Renaissance Revival Style hotel opened on June 12, 1927.  Over the years it has housed many famous people, including pioneer film director D.W. Griffith, actress Mae West, boxer Joe Louis, columnist Walter Winchell and former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived in a suite here from 1950 to 1953.  On June 29, 1933 blacklisted actor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle died in his suite at the Parl Central.  Unemployable since his infamous Labor Day party at the Hotel St. Francis in San Francisco, in which he was implicated in the death of actress Virginia Rappe, he struggled for years to find work in Hollywood with little success.  Although acquitted after three trials his reputation was forever tarnished and he spent the next decade directing and writing under aliases.  In early 1932 he was finally given the chance to work again when Jack Warner hired him for a series of shorts to be filmed at the Warner Bros. Brooklyn studio.  Between August 1932 and June 1933 Arbuckle made six shorts for Vitaphone, to popular success.  His last short In The Dough wrapped up shooting on June 28 and that evening he and his wife, Addie celebrated the series' completion and their first anniversary with a night out.  When the couple came back to their suite Roscoe went to bed and never woke up.  Sometime during the night he died of heart disease.  One of several notorious incidents linked to the hotel occurred on November 4, 1928, when mobster Arnold Rothstein was shot during a meeting in room 349 for allegedly failing to pay debts he owed after a three day long poker game the prior month.  He died two days later, refusing to name his assassin.  Nearly 30 years later the Park Central would see another famous assassination when crime boss Albert Anastasia was gunned down in the hotel's barber shop.  On October 25, 1957 he sat down for a shave when two men, hidden by scarves, entered the shop and began firing away.  Within seconds he was dead.  Although suspects abounded and some took credit, no one was ever charged with the crime. 

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