Another legend gone... (1 Viewer)

dennis63

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In today's news, an investment group from China has purchased the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and plans to close the building for three years in order to change most of its rooms into luxury apartments. The lead on the story read, "The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as you know it is gone forever."

And so is a wonderful oasis of true luxury in New York.

My wife and I visited New York a few years ago for a weekend. Since we were only there a few days, we splurged and got a room at the Waldorf. A standard room was $275 per night.

We thought about The Plaza, where Cary Grant once lived, but at $1,200 per night for a standard room, it was way out of our league. A different group of foreign investors bought the Plaza some years before, changed most of the hotel rooms to condos, and set the prices on the remaining rooms at an amazing $1,200 to $30,000 per night. (Yes, $30,000 per night.) We decided to have lunch there instead.

The Waldorf was one of the few places I've been in my life where I've said, "I had very high expectations, and this place exceeded them in every way." The beauty of the building itself -- exterior and interior -- and an amazing staff that was top-notch and very friendly, too, made for a great stay.

As you enter, you pass through several lobbies. Each looks elegant and palatial, and seems to be the main lobby, until you see the next one. Even the second floor has a marble lobby with pillars and arches like nothing I've ever seen.

We dropped our bags at the hotel (no problem). We had lunch at the Palm Court at the Plaza. (I'm a big fan of The Great Gatsby, and the Palm Court is described in the book.)

We had dinner at "21." We sat at the bar and chatted with the bartenders about which famous people had been in our chairs recently. (We tried to get Humphrey Bogart's table for dinner, but it's booked weeks in advance. We ended up across the isle from it, at Rod Stewart's favorite table.)

Toward the end of the night, I had a moment where it was like being in a kid's dream: walking out of dinner at 21 with my wife, getting into a taxi and telling the driver, "The Waldorf Astoria, please."

Like the news story said, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it existed."
 
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Damn...that kinda makes me mad. I love the story behind how they found the original hotel manager of the place. Really hate to see it goes to condos. That essentially goes against what the Astor's wanted for the place.

C'est la vie.
 
The place was truly incredible. It's actually hard to describe how it was the perfect mix of Old World elegance and modern luxury. They even had Cole Porter's white grand piano on a balcony overlooking the main.lobby.

We were there during some kind of symposium for psychiatrists in a ballroom off that mable hallway. I walked though the hall during a break. It looked like a Sigmund Freud lookalike contest.
 
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How did they find the manager?
He and his wife were looking for a room pretty late at night - I forget where - but everything in the area was booked up for an event. The young hotel manager where they were staying knew that the area was booked, but offered them the manager's room where he would normally rest overnight while on duty. The Astor's initially refused but the young man insisted. The following morning he refused payment, basically saying not to insult him with an offer of payment...he was just trying to make a rough situation less rough for them. Mr. Astor told him that he was the kind of man he wanted running his hotel when he built it, and it was going to be the best hotel in the world. Three or four years later that man received a letter in the mail inviting him to see the hotel that Mr. Astor had promised, and when he arrived, the young man was offered the job. He accepted, and was the first and only hotel manager for the first 23 years of the Waldorf-Astoria's existence.
 
I was fortunate enough to attend a conference there, two years ago. I stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria as we got a special rate for the conference, plus my company paided for it. My wife came out, and spent the last half of the week with me. Both of us growing up in the western US, we don't make it to NYC very often. We had a great trip, and after living there for a week, I became very familiar with the place. (And just how amazing the place is/was) I just read the story aloud to my wife, and she was visibly upset. Very sad, but we'll always have great memories of that trip, and we're grateful to get the opportunity to stay there.
 

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