IMAGES OF OUR PAST - ROBERT WARDLAW, THE TALLEST MAN IN THE WORLD EATS IN DUBLIN - During the lunch hour on Leap Day, 1940, many Dubliners were startled by what they saw in a local restaurant. Robert Pershing Wardlow stopped to grab a bite to eat on his way through Dublin. Wardlow ate at the Green Leaf Cafe, which was then located at the eastern corner of the current Bank of Dudley in Downtown Dublin. He wasn't your average man. Robert Wardlow was twenty two years old, but he was big for his age - eight feet eleven inches tall and growing. He was the world's tallest man and weighed 439 pounds. Shortly after his visit to Dublin, Robert Wardlaw died on June 27, 1940.