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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