Waldorf Astoria
Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts (traditionally spelled Waldorf⸗Astoria with the typographical special character of a slanted double hyphen ) is a chain of luxury hotels in the Hilton Group that goes back to two luxury hotels in New York . The original headquarters stood on the site of the Empire State Building on Fifth Avenue . The current hotel is a 42-story Art Deco building that opened at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan in 1931 . The name Astoria goes back to the ancestor of the founder Johann Jakob Astor , who was born in Walldorf (Baden) in 1763 and who became the richest man of his time in America through the fur trade, porcelain trade and real estate speculation.
The head office in New York City
In today's Waldorf-Astoria there are three American and classic European restaurants, a beauty salon and various luxury boutiques. The lobby has received several awards for its furnishings in the style of the time the hotel was built.
The upper area of the Waldorf-Astoria, known as The Waldorf Towers , is even more luxurious than the lower area - a "hotel within a hotel".
These two towers of the Waldorf-Astoria already house 500 apartments and their own lifts . The honorary and permanent guests of the hotel lived and still live in these Waldorf Towers. a. the Duke and Duchess of Windsor , the US President Herbert Hoover , General MacArthur , Henry Kissinger and the mafia boss Lucky Luciano . The Astoria has 47 floors at a height of 190 meters. At that time it was not only considered the largest but also the tallest hotel in the world.
history
In 1893, William Waldorf Astor opened the thirteen- story Waldorf Hotel on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, designed by the famous architect Henry Hardenbergh . In 1897, the four storeys higher Astoria Hotel of his cousin John Jacob Astor IV opened right next to it at the place where an aunt of the two cousins had previously lived. The route connecting the hotels came to be known as Peacock Alley because the society ladies strutted around like peacocks to be seen. The current name symbolizes the merging with the double hyphen ("Waldorf⸗Astoria"). The combined Waldorf-Astoria became the largest hotel in the world at the time, maintaining the high standards of the original Waldorf hotel . Oscar Tschirky , who was Maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf-Astoria for around 60 years , also became famous . John Jacob Astor IV went down on April 15, 1912 with the Titanic ; William Waldorf Astor died on October 18, 1919 in Great Britain , where he had lived since 1893. The first Waldorf Astoria Grand Hotel was closed on May 3, 1929 and then demolished. In the same year, construction of the Empire State Building began on the same property . The second Waldorf Astoria Hotel opened in its current location on Park Avenue on October 1, 1931 as the largest and tallest hotel in the world. Like most of the buildings on Park Avenue below 54th Street, the hotel was not built on natural ground , but rather on a steel structure above the railroad tracks that lead to Grand Central Terminal .
Others
- The Waldorf salad was created in the Hotel Waldorf at the end of the 19th century. In 1896 the recipe appeared in Oscar Tschirky's cookbook The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf .
- The US government held a spacious suite on the 41st floor of the Waldorf-Astoria as the seat of the US ambassador to the United Nations (Permanent Representative to the UN ).
- The Waldorf-Astoria has its own platform in the Grand Central Terminal . a. used by Franklin D. Roosevelt , Adlai Ewing Stevenson and Douglas MacArthur . A private underground passage leads to this platform exclusively for guests.
- Paris and Nicky Hilton grew up in the Waldorf-Astoria. The family owns their own suites in the hotel.
- The underground station of the hotel is the intermediate point of an escape of hostage takers in the film The Abduction of the underground Pelham 123 (2009).
More houses in the chain
The chain has 26 other hotels around the world, including 14 in the United States .
Since January 3, 2013, Berlin has a Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It is the chain's first hotel in Germany and the official hotel for Berlin Fashion Week . The Zoofenster called, 118.8 m high building was designed by the Frankfurt architect Christoph Mäckler planned.
Web links
- Official website of the chain
- Website of the parent company
- The Waldorf Towers website
- The Grand Central Terminal platform of the Waldorf-Astoria (Engl.)
- The Peacock Alley (Engl.)
- Brochure of the new Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . Published in 1931 - with many photos
Individual evidence
- ^ Annabella Fick: New York Hotel Experience. Transcript, Bielefeld 2017. ISBN 3-83763-781-6 .
- ^ Henry Hardenbergh Building
- ↑ see under "Management"
- ^ Waldorf New York, History ( Memento of November 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from June 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ FlyPedia News via Google News: Berlin Fashion Week 2013 with new official luxury hotel Waldorf Astoria . Accessed on January 21, 2013.
- ^ The bright spot of Berlin in FAZ of January 10, 2013, page 27
Coordinates: 40 ° 45 ′ 23 " N , 73 ° 58 ′ 27" W.