Waldorf Astoria New York
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel in Manhattan, New York City. The hotel has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York. The first, bearing the same name, was built in two stages, as the Waldorf Hotel and the Astoria Hotel, which accounts for its dual name. That original site was situated on Astor family properties along Fifth Avenue, opened in 1893, and designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh. It was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building. The present building, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets in Midtown Manhattan, is a 47-story Template:Convert Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultze and Weaver, which was completed in 1931. The current hotel was the world's tallest hotel from 1931 until 1963, when it was surpassed by Moscow's Hotel Ukraina by Template:Convert. An icon of glamour and luxury,Template:Sfn the current Waldorf Astoria is one of the world's most prestigious and best known hotels.Template:Sfn Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts is a division of Hilton Hotels, and a portfolio of high-end properties around the world, now operate under the name, including New York.
From its inception, the Waldorf Astoria gained international renown for its lavish dinner parties and galas, often at the center of political and business conferences and fundraising schemes involving the rich and famous. Particularly after World War II it played a significant role in world politics and the Cold War, culminating in the controversial World Peace Conference of March 1949 at the hotel, in which Stalinism was widely denounced. Conrad Hilton acquired management rights to the hotel on October 12, 1949, and the Hilton Hotels Corporation finally bought the hotel outright in 1972. It underwent a $150 million renovation by Lee Jablin in the 1980s and early 1990s, and in October 2014 it was announced that the Anbang Insurance Group of China had purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York for US$1.95 billion, making it the most expensive hotel ever sold. On July 1, 2016, Anbang announced that it would convert some of the Waldorf's hotel rooms into condominiums, closing the hotel for a three-year renovation on March 1, 2017.
The Waldorf Astoria and Towers has a total of 1,413 hotel rooms as of 2014. In 2009, when it had 1,416 rooms, the main hotel had 1,235 single and double rooms and 208 mini suites, while the Waldorf Towers, from the 28th floor up to the 42nd, had 181 rooms, of which 115 were suites, with one to four bedrooms. Several of the luxury suites are named after celebrities who lived or stayed in them such as The Cole Porter Suite, The Royal Suite, named after the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the MacArthur Suite and the Churchill Suite. The most expensive room, the Presidential Suite, is designed with Georgian-style furniture to emulate that of the White House. It was the residence of Herbert Hoover from his retirement for over 30 years, and Frank Sinatra kept a suite at the Waldorf from 1979 until 1988. The hotel has three main restaurants, Peacock Alley, The Bull and Bear Steak House, and La Chine, a new Chinese restaurant that replaced Oscar's Brasserie in late 2015. Sir Harry's Bar, named after British explorer Sir Harry Johnston, is the home of the Rob Roy and the Bobbie Burns cocktails.
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