- This article is about the hotel. For other uses, see Waldorf-Astoria (disambiguation).
For more than a century as an icon of social prestige, the Waldorf=Astoria is one of the most famous hotels in the world. Owned today by the Hilton Hotel chain, it was inaugurated in 1893 where the Empire State Building now stands, moving to its current location on Park Avenue in New York City, New York in 1931. Though the name of the hotel is often rendered with a dash (Waldorf-Astoria), its official title has an equal sign. Like the original Waldorf-Astoria, its second home is a major architectural landmark.
William Waldorf Astor built the original Waldorf Hotel on the site of today's Empire State Building site. He tore down his mansion there and arranged to lease a new structure to its proprietor, George C. Boldt, built to Boldt's specifications. Boldt had become nationally known for the small but elite boutique hotel, the Bellevue-Stratford, which he and his wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt, operated in Philadelphia. Louise Boldt was instrumental in changing the character of the American hotel, making it attractive and socially acceptable to elite women. The original Waldorf Hotel became the premier institution of its kind in America, rivaled only by the Ritz Hotels in Europe.
William Waldorf Astor feuded with his aunt, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, who owned an adjoining Fifth Avenue mansion. Largely through Boldt's negotiation, her son, John Jacob Astor IV, persuaded his aunt to move uptown, allowing the property to become an annex which they similarly built and leased to Boldt. Intially foreseen as two separate entities, Boldt had the foresight to plan the far larger new structure so that it could be connected to the old by means of the famous Peacock Alley, a corridor extending between the two entrances. At this time, it was agreed that the name of the new hotel would have an equal sign instead of a dash, symbolizing the equality of the two Astor hotels. The combined faciltity became not merely the largest hotel in the world at the time, but managed to maintain the original Waldorf prestige as one of the most elite.
Representing the Art Deco movement, the 1930s' Waldorf-Astoria combines prestigeous elegance with a range of amenities and services, including a trio of American and classic European restaurants, and a prestigeous beauty parlor, Kenneth's Salon. Several luxurious boutiques surround the distinctive lobby, which has won awards for its restoration to the original period character. The solicitous conduct of the Waldorf-Astoria customer service staff has become a tradition for more than a century.
Located on Park Avenue, near Fifth and Madison Avenue shops and numerous art galleries, the hotel offers both guestrooms and suites. The luxurious, virtually a hotel within a hotel is the upper section is known as The Waldorf Towers.[1] (http://www.thewaldorftowers.com)
The Waldorf-Astoria is the only hotel in the world that serves as an Ambassadorial residence. It has its own platform as part of the Grand Central Terminal, which was used historically by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and later by Adlai Stevenson and Douglas MacArthur.
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