Heath Ledger Death Site Added to New York's Rich & Famous Downtown Tour

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 3, 2008 -- Heath Ledger's "death site" has been newly added to the Rich & Famous "downtown" New York tour in addition to Madison Avenue's historic Frank Campbell Funeral Home where Ledger's body was prepared for burial and shipped home to Australia. Other dead notables who were prepared by Campbell's include Aaliyah, Ulysses S. Grant, Joan Crawford, J.C. Penney, Jackie O., Judy Garland and more too numerous to mention. Recently Rich & Famous added the death location of real estate broker-to-the-stars Linda Stein.

The Ledger death location, a SoHo Loft at 421 Broome St., is where the Brokeback Mountain star was found dead in his bed two weeks ago at the age of 28, surrounded by an assortment of drugs. Suddenly, outside the front door, an "instant memorial" of cheap candles, flowers, pictures of the star, etc. "sprang up" on the steps of the 1870's cast iron structure, now turned into plush SoHo rental lofts. Ledger alledgedy paid $28,000 per month for his 4th floor spread in the former 19th century drygoods building.

Jarod P., an actor and one of a cluster of fans waiting in the January cold outside the building said, "Poor Heath...he was a secret junkie, apparently. Only 28 years old...Didn't he realize he won life's lottery? If he didn't like showbiz and hated being famous, why didn't he go back to Australia and get a REAL job?" Diane B., of Brooklyn says: "Michelle Williams apparently threw him out of their Brooklyn brownstone because they had a baby (little Mathilda) and Michelle (obviously the grownup in the relationship) did not want pills or a junkie Dad around the baby."

New York's SoHo neighborhood has over 100 cast iron facade buildings, dating back to the early industrial age...they were truly the first "pre-fab" buildings in America, although the cast iron style came from England. When iron the pieces were cooled, the sections were bolted together, primed and painted, and formed the facade of mostly wood-framed buildings (with brick in back and on the sides usually). The buildings were thought to be largely fire-proof, but of course the wood frames and floors could burn and often did. Firemen of the 1800's referred to the 100 - acre district of cast iron stores and factories as "Hell's Hundred Acres" because of the frequent factory blazes. Near by (near Washington Square) stood the (in)famous TriAngle Shirtwaist Factory, a dressmaking factory that had an enormous fire in 1911 which killed 146 workers and was the reason for the beginning of the International Ladies Garment Worker's Union. This was a tragedy worth crying over: 146 young, mostly immigrant women who had yet to begin their lives, killed in a competely preventable tragedy. This historic tragedy is in stark contrast to a 28 year old star who overdosed on anti-anxiety drugs because he allegedly couldn't handle the pressures of fame and fortune.

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