An armed robbery at the famed Waldorf-Astoria's jewelry store sent a retired NYPD detective to the hospital as gunfire rang through the posh hotel.
The shooting happened at Cellini Jewelers in the lobby of the Park Avenue icon during an attempted smash-and-grab job just before 3 p.m. Saturday.
The mayhem began when a man wearing a black track suit pulled out a gun in the jewelry store and used the weapon to break two display cases full of expensive rings and necklaces, according to a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because detectives were still investigating.
Retired NYPD detective Gregory J. Boyle, who was working as a security guard, confronted the robber and they wrestled to the floor. About three shots rang out during the struggle but it wasn't clear which of the two had fired, the official said. Both were armed.
One bullet hit Boyle in the left upper chest, the official said.
Another hotel employee then tackled the suspect, the police official said. The suspect's gun went off again as they grappled, but that bullet apparently did not strike anybody. Hotel security staffers arrived and took the suspect into custody.
Boyle, 54, was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center where he remained in stable condition on Sunday. The ex-cop who lives in Brooklyn retired in 2002 after spending 21 years on the force, mostly at the 66th Precinct in Boro Park.
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The suspect –– identified as Rafael Rabinovich-Ardens, 20, a Brazilian immigrant who lives in Highland Park, N.J. –– was taken into custody.
He was charged with second-degree attempted murder, assault, grand larceny, robbery and criminal use of a firearm.
While Boyle was the only person seriously injured in the robbery, chaos broke out among Waldorf guests at the sound of gunfire.
One man pulled out his cell phone to text his wife, who was in the lobby bathroom.
"Gunshots. Get out now. I'm not kidding," Matt Luba, of Old Tappen, N.J., wrote his wife.
Another hotel guest told NBC New York he heard a gunshot, "people screaming; then I heard more gunshots."
Other witnesses described hotel guests running in panic through the lobby and out the doors of the hotel.
A guest at the hotel, Christine Cataldo, of Long Island, said she was looking at a display of engagement rings near the entrance to the store when she heard the first shot.
"It sounded like a bomb. One big boom. And then people started running," she said. "I looked up, and I saw a man in a suit with silver hair grabbing another guy."
More gunfire followed, she said. A glass case exploded during the mayhem.
Witness Jeff Johnston, of Raleigh, N.C., said he was near the store when chaos broke out. "All of a sudden people were running and hiding behind hotel furniture," he said. A telephone message left with the hotel was not immediately returned.
The Waldorf-Astoria was the world's largest hotel when it opened in its current Park Avenue spot in 1931, according to the hotel's Web site. It had previously been on Fifth Avenue.
The Art Deco hotel quickly became synonymous with luxury and part of popular culture, appearing in the 1945 Ginger Rogers film "Weekend at the Waldorf" and garnering a mention in the classic Cole Porter song "You're the Top."
Cellini Jewelers, a high-end boutique that specializes in luxury watches adorned with diamonds and gold, opened in the hotel in 1977.
No one answered the phone at the store Saturday. A saleswoman at Cellini's sister store in Manhattan said she hadn't heard from the managers at the location where the shooting took place and had no additional information.
