This article is about the historic Manhattan hotel. For the announced Chicago skyscraper, see Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Residence Tower.
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The hotel's name with a single hyphen is engraved and gilded over the entrance.
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The hotel's name with the double hyphen on the awning over the Park Avenue entrance.
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Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Park Avenue with Helmsley Building and Met Life Building in background
The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is a famously luxurious hotel in New York. It 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 Schultze and Weaver that dates from 1931 and is now part of the The Waldorf=Astoria Collection, a chain of very upscale hotels consisting of hotels previously of the Hilton Hotels and Conrad Hotels chains, as well as some new hotels.
The name, Waldorf=Astoria, now officially 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.
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 owners and operators of the Bellevue, an elite boutique hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Broad Street, subsequently expanded and renamed the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. Boldt continued to own the Bellevue (and, later, the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel) even after his relationship with the Astors blossomed.
William Astor's construction of a hotel next to his aunt's home worsened 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.
When the new skyscraping Waldorf-Astoria was built on Park Avenue, under the guidance of Lucius Boomer, the manager of the old Waldorf, a cast of furnishers and decorators with good reputations was assembled, to give it a grand yet domestic atmosphere.[1] Boomer retired to Florida after the old Waldorf Astoria was demolished, but he had retained exclusive rights to use the name "Waldorf-Astoria", which he transferred to the new hotel. He died in an airplane crash in 1947, and Conrad Hilton bought the Waldorf Astoria in 1949. [2]
In 2006 Hilton Hotels announced plans to build a second Waldorf-Astoria near Walt Disney World in Florida, and in 2007, plans were announced that another Waldorf-Astoria will be built in Beverly Hills, where Santa Monica Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard cross. A combination hotel and condominium Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Residence Tower has been announced by third parties to be developed for Hilton in Chicago.
On August 24, 2007, Dimension Development Company of Natchitoches, Louisiana announced the purchase of the New Orleans Fairmont Hotel and plans to convert the hotel into a Waldorf Astoria. It was not immediately known whether the name would be changed to Waldorf Astoria or whether it would revert to its former name, The Roosevelt with the tagline, a Waldorf Astoria Collection Hotel. In the 1940s, 50s and 60s, The Roosevelt was home to the World Famous "Blue Room" which brought--for the first time--the best Hollywood and Las Vegas talent to the Deep South on a regular basis.
Trivia
- William Waldorf Astor derived 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.
- After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor for winning four Olympic gold medals, Jesse Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend a reception for him at the Waldorf-Astoria due to its segregation policies[3].
- 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 railway platform as part of Grand Central Terminal, used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, and Douglas MacArthur, among others. An elevator large enough to fit Franklin D. Roosevelt's car provides access to the platform.
- 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 end-of-season awards banquet has been held at the Waldorf-Astoria every year since 1981, initially in the Starlight Room, but since 1985 in the Grand Ballroom, except 2001 and 2002. A formal awards ceremony (not a banquet) was held in those two years, with the 2002 awards ceremony was held at Hammerstein Ballroom, with the pre-show banquet held at the Waldorf-Astoria. The Presidential Suite is reserved for the Series Champion.
- Pianist George Feyer spent his remaining years of public performing here, between 1980-1982.
- In the 1988 movie Coming To America the king of Zamunda (played by James Earl Jones) and his family stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria; one joke in the movie showed the King "punishing" Semi, the prince's servant, by ordering him to confine himself to the hotel's royal suite.
- 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, a number of scenes take place between the two main characters in the Waldorf-Astoria.
- Statler & Waldorf, a pair of Muppet characters, are named after posh New York City hotels, the Statler Hotel and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Waldorf's wife, Astoria, looks like Statler in drag.
- The annual International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria is held to formally introduce young high society women.
- On May 1, 2004, the Waldorf-Astoria was the venue for the Grand Europe Ball, a historic black-tie charitable affair co-chaired by Archduke Georg of Austria-Hungary which celebrated the Enlargement of the European Union.
- The Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School and Syosset High School traditionally hold their Senior Proms in the grand ballroom of the hotel. Regis High School in Manhattan holds their annual Senior Prom at the Waldorf's Starlight Ballroom.
- Gangsters Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Charles "Lucky" Luciano once lived in the Waldorf-Astoria.
Also See
References
1. ^ The list gives a repertory of eminent firms working in New York: "Among those who contributed to its solution are: Sir Charles Allom of White, Allom & Co., London and New York; L. Alavoine & Co., of Paris and New York; Arthur S. Vernay, Inc., New York; Barton, Price and Willson, Inc., New York; Jacques Bodart, Inc., Paris and New York; Mr. R. T. H. Halsey, Maison Jansen, Paris; Francis Lenygon, of Lenygon & Morant, London and New York; Nordiska Kompaniet of Stockholm, Sweden; W. & J. Sloane, New York; Mrs. Charles H. Sabin, consultant decorator of transient section of the hotel; Schmieg, Hungate & Kotzian, New York, Nathan Straus & Sons, New York, and A. Rutledge-Smith, general consulting decorator of the Hotel Corporation." ("A New Waldorf Against The Sky", 1931)
2. ^ The “New” Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1931), by Stanley Turkel
3. ^ As quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" by Larry Schwartz in ESPN SportsCentury. (2005)
2. ^ The “New” Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1931), by Stanley Turkel
3. ^ As quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" by Larry Schwartz in ESPN SportsCentury. (2005)
External links and references
- "The Passing of the Old Hotel", 1931
- "Boomer Takes Command", 1931
- "A New Waldorf Against the Sky", 1931
- Official website
- Waldorf Towers
- "It's De Limit" Forbes article by Finn-Olaf Jones on Waldof-Astoria architects Schultze and Weaver, April 24, 2006
- 1952 Empire Room review
- Ward Morehouse III, Life at the Top and The Waldorf-Astoria
- "New Orleans Fairmont Hotel to become Waldorf Astoria, Time Picayune, August 24, 2007
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Henry Janeway Hardenbergh (February 6, 1847 - March 18, 1918) was a U.S. architect, who designed The Dakota luxury-apartment building; the Copley Plaza in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Plaza Hotel, both near Central Park in Manhattan.
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Added to NRHP: November 17, 1982 [3]
NRHP Reference#: 82001192
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, New York on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
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NRHP Reference#: 82001192
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, New York on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
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Park Avenue (formerly Fourth Avenue) is a wide boulevard that carries traffic north and south in Manhattan in New York City. Throughout most of its duration, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east.
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Manhattan is a borough of New York City, New York, USA, with New York County. With a 2000 population of 1,537,195[2] living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.
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A foot (plural: feet or foot;[1] symbol or abbreviation: ft or, sometimes, ′SI units
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The metre or meter[1](symbol: m) is the fundamental unit of length in the International System of Units (SI).SI units
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Art Deco was a popular design movement from 1920 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film.
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The architectural firm of Schultze and Weaver was established in New York City in 1921. The partners were Leonard Schultze and S. Fullerton Weaver. Schultze had been an employee of the firm of Warren & Wetmore, and during his twenty years in that company's office he had worked on
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The Waldorf=Astoria Collection is a collection of what the Hilton Hotels Corporation considers to be its premiere, most luxurious and most identifiable boutique hotels and resorts.
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Hilton brand was re-united internationally after more than 40 years in February 2006, when United States-based Hilton Hotels Corporation purchased the lodging arm of United Kingdom-based Hilton Group PLC, which had acquired Hilton's international operations in 1987 (the companies
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Conrad Hotels is a luxury hotel brand controlled by Hilton Hotels Corporation and is based in Beverly Hills, California.
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History
The chain was founded in 1982. At that time, Hilton and Hilton International were completely separate companies...... Click the link for more information.
double hyphen (⸗) is a punctuation mark that consists of two parallel hyphens. It is not to be confused with two consecutive hyphens (--), which usually represent an em dash (—).
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Conrad Hotels is a luxury hotel brand controlled by Hilton Hotels Corporation and is based in Beverly Hills, California.
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History
The chain was founded in 1982. At that time, Hilton and Hilton International were completely separate companies...... Click the link for more information.
The Astor family is a significant Anglo-American business, social, and political family of German descent. John Jacob Astor and his wife Sarah Todd came to the United States from Walldorf, Germany in the late 18th
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feud (IPA [fjud]) is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often, through guilt by association, groups of people, especially families or clans.
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Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Lined with expensive park-view real estate and historical mansions, it is a symbol of wealthy New York.
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William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor (March 31, 1848 – October 18, 1919) was a financier and statesman and a member of the prominent Astor family.
William Astor was born in New York City, the only child of John Jacob Astor III (1822-1890) and Charlotte Augusta
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William Astor was born in New York City, the only child of John Jacob Astor III (1822-1890) and Charlotte Augusta
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John Jacob Astor IV (July 13, 1864 – April 15, 1912) was an American millionaire businessman, inventor, writer, a member of the prominent Astor family, and a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War. He died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912.
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Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor (September 22, 1830–October 30, 1908) was a prominent American socialite of the last quarter of the 19th century. Famous for being referred to as simply "the Mrs.
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Added to NRHP: November 17, 1982 [3]
NRHP Reference#: 82001192
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, New York on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
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NRHP Reference#: 82001192
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, New York on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
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George Charles Boldt (1851-1916), was a Prussian-born, self-made millionaire, who influenced the development of the urban hotel as a civic social center and luxurious destination.
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Nickname: "City of Brotherly Love", "The City that Loves you Back", "Cradle of Liberty", "The Quaker City", "The Birthplace of America", "Philly".
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The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel has continued as a well-known institution for more than a century. The hotel in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has been renamed several times, but still is widely known by its historic name.
Prussian immigrant George C.
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Prussian immigrant George C.
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George Charles Boldt (1851-1916), was a Prussian-born, self-made millionaire, who influenced the development of the urban hotel as a civic social center and luxurious destination.
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Oscar Tschirky (1866 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland - November 7, 1950, in New Paltz, New York) was maître d'hôtel of Delmonico's Restaurant and subsequently the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States.
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