New York's Immensely Famous Pierre Hotel

The world’s famous Pierre Hotel has been a symbol of New York elegance and glamour since 1930. 

 

Located just steps from Central Park on Manhattan’s East Side, it’s distinguished guests both on and off the screen, have enhanced its notoriety across the globe. 

 

It was a featured location in “Scent of a Woman” where Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino) danced the tango with Gabrielle Anwar to “Por Una Cabeza”, which was filmed in the Cotillion Ballroom. 

 

The Pierre penthouse was the home of Anthony Hopkins’ character, William Parrish in “Meet Joe Black”. 

 

Of course numerous series like “Mad Men, “The Soprano’s” and “CSI New York” were also shot there. 

 

Over its almost hundred year timelessness existence, the Pierre has always been a luxury associated with high society and the very wealthy.

 

When J Paul Getty bought the hotel in 1940, he went out of his way to replace the Cafe Society with the Hollywood jetsetters and the fashion world.  

 

It’s patrons have included Elizabeth Taylor, Karl Lagerfeld, Hubert de Givenchy, Barbara Streisand, Coco Chanel, Joan Collins, Richard Nixon,  Cher, Andy Warhol, Mary Tyler Moore,  Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent,  Audrey Hepburn and too many others to mention. 

 

But the Pierre Hotel is also known in the Guinness record books as the Biggest Hotel Robbery in the world, worth approximately $450 million in today’s dollars.

 

You see, Bobby Comfort and Sammy Nalo were professional robbers who had a knack for stealing from the rich and holding up high-end hotels in New York, and

they had been planning this for two years.

 

At 2:45 AM on January 2nd 1972 when most of the hotel’s guests were soundly sleeping off their escapades from the previous New Year’s Eve extravaganzas, which they had attended wearing their finest jewels. 

 

The crew all wearing disguises entered the lobby from the 61st street entrance and went to work. They handcuffed sixteen hostages and changed clothes with the sole security guard and locked all the doors to the hotel and shut the elevators off. 

 

The crooks went to work smashing with mostly hammers, the security boxes full of cash and jewels.

 

Shortly after 6 AM the thieves made their way out of the hotel to their get away cars and a limousine parked in front of the hotel, which didn’t work after the battery died.  When one of the cars made an illegal turn to jump the limo, the police noticed and rather give the man a hard time for the traffic violation, the police gave the man a hand. 

 

One thing the crew did really well was to treat the hostages in a way that really did make them think that they should not tell the police anything, and without security cameras there wasn’t a lot to go on.

 

They both spent four years in prison for possession, and the case of The Pierre hotel robbery still remains officially unsolved.