Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
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The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel has been housed in two historic landmark buildings of New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a 47-story, 625 ft. (191 m) Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultz and Weaver that dates from 1931 and is now part of the The Waldorf-Astoria Collection.
The name, Waldorf=Astoria, now appears with a double hyphen, but originally the single hyphen was employed, as recalled by a popular expression and song, "Meet Me at the Hyphen."
The modern hotel has three American and classic European restaurants, and a beauty parlor located off the main lobby. Several luxurious boutiques surround the distinctive lobby, which has won awards for its restoration to the original period character. An even more luxurious, virtual "hotel within a hotel" in its upper section is known as The Waldorf Towers operated by Conrad Hotels & Resorts.
[edit] History
An Astor family feud contributed to the events which led to the construction of the original Waldorf-Astoria on Fifth Avenue.
It started as two hotels: one owned by William Waldorf Astor, whose 13-story Waldorf Hotel was opened in 1893 and the other owned by his cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, called the Astoria Hotel and opened four years later and four stories higher.
William Astor, motivated in part by a dispute with his aunt, built the original Waldorf Hotel next door to her home, on the site of his father's mansion and today's Empire State Building. The hotel was built to the specifications of founding proprietor George Boldt; he and his wife Louise had become known as the operators of the Bellevue, an elite boutique hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Broad Street, subsequently the Bellevue Stratford Hotel. Later the noted hotel host, Claude H. Bennett, became Manager of the rebuilt and greatly enlarged Philadelphia hotel during the 1920s through the 1940s. His son, Robert C Bennett, and grandson, Robert Jr., were also employed on the management staff of the 'Grand Dame' of Broad Street in the 1970s. Louise Boldt had been instrumental in making that hotel attractive and socially acceptable to wealthy women. This characteristic probably was a major factor in asking George Boldt to become proprietor of the new Waldorf Hotel in New York. Boldt continued to own the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia.
William Astor's construction of a hotel next to his aunt's home furthered and strengthened his feud with her. But with Boldt's help, John Astor persuaded his aunt to move uptown. John Astor then built the Astor Hotel and leased it to Boldt. Initially foreseen as two separate entities, Boldt had planned the new structure so that it could be connected to the old by means that became known as Peacock Alley. The combined Waldorf-Astoria became the largest hotel in the world at the time, while maintaining the original Waldorf's high standards.
The Waldorf-Astoria is historically significant for transforming the contemporary hotel, then a facility for transients, into a social center of the city as well as a prestigious destination for visitors. The Waldorf-Astoria was influential in advancing the status of women, who were admitted singly without escorts. Founding proprietor, George C. Boldt, became wealthy and prominent internationally, if not so much a popular celebrity as his famous employee, Oscar Tschirky, "Oscar of the Waldorf." Boldt built one of American's most ambitious houses, Boldt Castle, on one of the Thousand Islands. George Boldt's wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt, was influential in evolving the idea of the grand urban hotel as a social center, particularly in making it appealing to women as a venue for social events.
In 2006 Hilton Hotels announced plans to build a second Waldorf-Astoria near Walt Disney World in Florida.
[edit] Trivia
- William derives his middle name from Walldorf, Germany, from which his great-grandfather John Jacob Astor emigrated in 1784. John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company founded Fort Astoria in Astoria, Oregon which is the first permanent United States settlement on the Pacific Ocean. Members of the expedition (which was the first trans-continental trip after Lewis and Clark) to establish settlement are called Astorians.
- During the 1950s and early 1960s, former U.S. president Herbert Hoover and retired U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, lived in suites on different floors of the hotel. A plaque affixed to the wall on the 49th Street side commemorates this. Around the time of World War I, inventor Nikola Tesla had lived in the earlier Waldorf=Astoria.
- There is a recreation of one of the living room of Hoover's Waldorf-Astoria suite in the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.
- The U.S. government keeps a large suite on the hotel's 42nd floor as the ambassadorial residence for its United Nations ambassador.
- The hotel has its own platform as part of Grand Central Terminal, used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, and Douglas MacArthur, among others.
- Waldorf salad — a salad consisting of apple, nuts (especially walnuts), celery, and mayonnaise or a mayonnaise-based dressing — was first created in 1896 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York by Oscar Tschirky, who was the maître d'hôtel.
- Cole Porter and Linda Lee Thomas had an apartment in the Waldorf Towers, where she died in 1954. Porter's 1934 song "You're the Top," contains the lyric, "You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad..."
- The original Waldorf-Astoria was used in the investigation into the Titanic sinking
- The Nascar Nextel Cup awards banquet has been held here since the 1980s
- In the 1988 movie Coming To America the king of Zamunda ( played by James Earl Jones) and his family stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria
- In the 1992 movie Scent of a Woman, Lt. Col. Frank Slade (Al Pacino) and his traveling companion Charles Simms (Chris O'Donnell) stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria
- In the 2001 film, Serendipity, the two main characters have a number of scenes that take place in the Waldorf-Astoria.
[edit] External links and references
- Official website
- Waldorf Towers
- The hotel's Grand Central Terminal platform, maintained as a personal project by an employee of Columbia University
- "Peacock Alley" explanation, from the personal website of an etymological editor/consultant
- 1952 Empire Room review
- Book On The Story Of The Waldorf-Astoria From 1931
nl:Waldorf-Astoria Hotel ja:ウォルドルフ＝アストリア pt:Waldorf-Astoria Hotel fi:Waldorf=Astoria Hotel sv:Waldorf Astoria zh:华道夫=阿斯多里亚酒店
