Feels Like Home At The Waldorf Astoria

The famed art deco landmark is going back in time to reopen as a hotel and branded residences.

- Hannah Choo

Nobody forgets The Waldorf Astoria. A high-minded piece of sculpture that's also the epicenter of society and geopolitical events, the memories created here are meant for a lifetime. People consider it the unofficial palace of New York City, a playground for cultural figures, political leaders, musicians, and royalty to mingle and make merry - John F Kennedy, Andy Warhol, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name a few. Ella Fitzgerald regularly sang at the Starlight Roof ballroom, and the American composer Cole Porter, who rented a suite until his death, composed iconic songs like Anything Goes and I've Got You Under My Skin on a beautiful 1907 Steinway piano that was gifted to him by the hotel's management.

Its story began with two rival cousins William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV whose eventual truce led their two hotels to unity on 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue in 1893. In 1931, The Waldorf Astoria reopened in its current Park Avenue location, becoming the largest and tallest hotel in the world and the origin of plenty of firsts: 24-hour room service, en suite bathrooms, electric lighting on every floor and 'manufactured weather', which was basically air conditioning in the 1930s.

In 1993, the art deco beauty was named an official New York City Landmark, but by 2023, it will once again create history by going back in time. At the ripe old age of 91, it is undergoing deconstruction and restoration to what it was like in 1931. The history is so significant here. People have lived here and they remember the hotel in its grandeur. So we wanted to bring that back. This is where they grew up, this is where they had their prom, says Dan Tubb, its senior director of sales. If we had redone all the interiors here, there would have been some sort of demonstration.