A Finale, Frozen in Time - New York Times:
THIS is a story about a man who ran out of time, and a place where time has stood still.
The man died in his daughter’s arms at 1:17 a.m. His physician waved a handkerchief from the window, signaling the news to the crowd gathered outside his third-floor room in the Players Club on Gramercy Park South. It was June 7, 1893, and Edwin Booth was dead.
History often recalls Edwin Booth by a shameful association — his younger brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Lincoln, whose birthday is tomorrow — but in his day Edwin was revered as one of the greatest actors ever. In 1888, seeking to elevate the place of the actor in society, he established the Players Club in a handsome town house, remodeled by Stanford White to accommodate its new role as a gentlemen’s club. On the third floor of the building, which faces Gramercy Park, Booth established living quarters, where he could reside when in the city.
Upon his death, the door to his quarters at the Players Club was closed. As club lore has it, the room has stood virtually untouched for the last 114 years. Now, the space is known simply as the Booth Room, and kept behind lock and key. Turn past the grandfather clock in the club’s Great Hall, climb a set of creaky stairs beyond a row of sketches, oils and photographs, including several of Booth, his lips pursed, his hair black and shiny, and there, behind a door, are two adjoined rooms, frozen in the 19th century.
4:13 AM
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