In 2007, my wife and I visited New York City for the first time ever during Thanksgiving and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Spending a week in the big apple, we wanted to take in the classic, historical experience and booked our week in New York at the historic Waldorf Astoria a few blocks from Grand Central Station (the final night we stayed at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square). A part of the history of the original Waldorf Astoria in New York City is that just about everybody famous from the early to mid 1900’s stayed at the hotel. In fact, every United States President has stayed or lived at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City since Herbert Hoover served as President from 1929-1933. In Orlando, a little bit of the Waldorf Astoria heydays lives on at the Jack’s Place Restaurant at the Rosen Plaza Hotel on International Drive.
Jack’s Place Restaurant
Jack Rosen was the Director of Safety at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City from 1932 until 1962. In addition to his primary role on safety at the hotel, Jack Rosen worked as a cartoonist and sketched caricature pictures of guests and dignitaries visiting the hotel in which many of the sketches were signed by the guests themselves. Some of the best of best of the nearly 1,000 sketches of famous guests sketched by Rosen are on display at Jack’s Place restaurant at the Rosen Plaza on International Drive. Jack’s son, Harris Rosen, is the owner of the Rosen Plaza in addition to several other hotels in Orlando (including the Rosen Centre and Rosen Shingle Creek).
Jack’s Caricature Sketches
If the Hard Rock Cafe has a monopoly on rock star autographs displayed on the walls of it’s restaurant, Jack’s Place makes a strong case for the heroes and important historical figures of the 20th century in a salute to Sardi’s Restaurant in New York City.
Some of the sketches and autographs on the walls at Jack’s Place include such famous heroes of Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Charlies Lindbergh, Harry Houdini, the Pope, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and others listed below:
Actors – John Wayne, Elisabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Bob Hope, Barbara Streisand, Betty Davis, and Katherine Hepburn
Artists – Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Andy Warhol
Astronauts – Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and John Young
Athletes – Baseball players Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and boxer Muhammad Ali
Presidents – Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Lyndon B Johnson
Jack’s Place Sketch Tour Video
The video below is a tour of the different sketches at Jack’s Place restaurant that gives the background and history of the different sketches:
Click here to visit the official site of Jack’s Place for more information and to book your reservation.
Analog Artist Digital World
Also, if you want to check out Orlando’s best modern-day sketch artist, click here to visit Thomas Thorspecken’s Analog Artist Digital World blog that is one of the best in the Orlando blogosphere.
Rosen Plaza Hotel