Albert Anastasia Barbershop Escape Room

Five Families escape room guide · Park Sheraton Hotel, 7th Avenue · October 25, 1957

Chair number 4, a broken mirror and ninety seconds before the police arrive. The Park Sheraton Barbershop is one of the Five Families escape rooms: a 3D recreation of a real scene from mob history that you walk around as your own mobster, searching for evidence and cracking a four-digit padlock before the clock runs out. This guide covers the real story behind the room, what you'll find inside, and how to get out.

The real story

Anastasia had his eyes shut and his face under hot towels when the two gunmen walked in around the partition.

Albert Anastasia was killed while sitting in the barber's chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel on Seventh Avenue.

Anastasia's driver and bodyguard, Anthony Coppola, had parked the car in an underground garage and gone for a walk. Anastasia was alone.

Most accounts say the killing was arranged by Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino. Gambino took over Anastasia's family.

The barbershop staff provided little useful information to investigators. The case was never solved.

Witnesses to mob killings in 1950s New York routinely declined to cooperate with investigators. Those who did frequently recanted or disappeared.

Setting the scene

Albert Anastasia, boss of the Gambino family and one of the most feared men in New York, sat down in chair number 4 at the Park Sheraton barbershop at 10:20am.

The barber stepped away. Two men in the chairs either side stood up.

Four shots. Anastasia fell forward into the mirror, then onto the floor.

You're the barber's assistant. You were in the back when it happened. You heard everything. And now you're holding a towel with a partial handprint on it, and you have about ninety seconds before the police arrive.

Before you get inside, you make your own way there. Walk down Seventh Avenue in the October morning to the Park Sheraton Hotel and its ground-floor barber shop. A green arrow shows you the door.

Three rooms in one

The Park Sheraton Barbershop isn't one room, it's three, and you only see the next one once you've earned it. Each has three things to search. Search everything in the room you're in and a door unlocks, a glowing arrow shows you the way through, and the next part of the scene opens up. The clock keeps running the whole time: 5 minutes for all three.

The padlock code is spread across all three, so you can't escape from the back room. Move fast in the first room: the last room is where people run out of time.

What you'll find in each room

There are 9 things to search in the Park Sheraton Barbershop, three in each room. 4 of them hide a digit of the padlock code, 2 are dead ends put there to waste your time, and the rest fill in the story. The broken mirror, the coat hook (number 6) and the towel in your hand stay locked until you've found 3 clues. The cash register, the magazine and the lobby door stay locked until you've found 6 clues.

First room: The back room

Second room: The shop floor

Third room: The front of the shop

Park Sheraton Barbershop escape room walkthrough

1. Take in the room. Drag to look around and walk with the stick or arrow keys. Question marks show everything you can search.
2. Clear each room. Search all three things in the back room and the way through to the shop floor unlocks. Clear that and you're into the front of the shop. Follow the glowing arrow to the next door.
3. Find the four digits. Each piece of evidence that matters gives you one digit, and tells you which position it goes in. Stuck? The hints below point you to the right room, not the answer.
4. Ignore the red herrings. Some items look important and aren't. Don't spend the clock on them.
5. Open the padlock with the four digits in order, before the 5 minutes run out.
6. Make the call. You'll choose how it ends: Drop the towel, say you saw nothing; Hand the towel to the police — tell them what you saw; Burn the towel in the back room — buy yourself time. Each ending tells you what really happened.

Tips for escaping

• Read each piece of evidence to the end: the digit is usually in the last line.
• If the clock's getting away from you, a hint costs 25 Mob Coins and an extra minute costs 50.
• Holding a drink or a cigar from the Social Club gives you 20 extra seconds in every room.
• On a phone, turn it sideways for a wider view. Your evidence, digits and the padlock are in the pull-out case file.

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Questions

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