Waldorf-Astoria

1893: 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.

1931 Two years after William Waldorf Astor’s original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was demolished to make way for the Empire State Building, the new Waldorf-Astoria, occupying a full city block and then the largest hotel in the world, opened in 1931 on Park Avenue at 50th Street. Rising 47 stories, this Art Deco landmark has welcomed every U.S. president since Herbert Hoover checked in as a permanent resident in The Waldorf Towers. The hotel’s richly decorated lobby, with its famous massive bronze and mahogany clock from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, is one of the most well-known meeting places in the city. In 2006 Hilton Hotels announced plans to create a Waldorf collection. They want 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. Once again a legendary hotel name is used to create a chain of legendary hotels (see: Raffles, The Peninsula, Ritz-Carlton, etc.). Finally, Hilton has launched its high-end luxury line and called it "Waldorf".

However, please rest assured, there will always be only one Waldorf-Astoria.

The Waldorf Towers is the hotel within the hotel (28th-42nd floor) offering direct access to Waldorf Astoria.
The US Govenrment has rented an entire floor for the period of 50 years. It's there that they arrange meetings with international diplomats (President George Bush met with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder).
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 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. The annual International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria is held to formally introduce young high society women. The debutantes from Texas perform the "texas dip". 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.

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.
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, is Statler’s sister (and is portrayed as the Statler Muppet in drag), making the two brothers-in-law.

Eric Long
Rene Alexander Balin
and, to start with:
George Boldt: he was the man who made the Waldorf. He was born April 25, 1851, in Prussia. (Some sources state he was born in Damgarten on the island of Rügen, but actually, Damgarten is a good 50km west of the island.) When George was 13, he left Germany for the New World. He first worked in restaurants and hotels in New York City, but later left to take up farming in Texas. Unfortunately, farming turned out to be a disaster for him, and in 1871 he made his way back north.

After working in New York for a while, he moved to Philadelphia where he met Louise Kehrer. He was smitten by her immediately. When she reached the age of 15, the two married on June 14, 1877. They had two children, George Charles Jr. born 1879 and Louise “Clover”, born 1883.

George became more and more successful in the hotel business, eventually managing several hotels, including the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City and the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia, that catered almost exclusively to members of the upper crust of society. In fact, he purposely raised the prices at his establishments to ensure the exclusivity of his clientele.

George Boldt died December 5, 1916, in New York City.