Waldorf Astoria renovation

[Wally in Cincy]

Just thought someone might be interested. This hotel reminds me a lot of the Netherland Plaza in downtown Cincy which was built around the same time.

https://www.bdcnetwork.com/waldorf-...-massive-renovation?eid=216312953&bid=1711750

 

[Fading Fast]

Growing up in a reasonably small town in NJ, hotels like the Waldorf might just have well been in OZ. Not only had I never stayed in one, I'd never even seen one inside (although, I had been in NYC and seen them from the outside as a kid - and they did look like they belong in the Emerald City).

Then a few years out of college, I switched companies ands started working for the NYC-based trading division of a Swiss bank located next to the Waldorf. The Swiss culture - compared to traditional NYC trading / brokerage firms - is formal and several meetings (annual business plan, major reviews, international conferences, etc.) were held at the Waldorf, which was my first opportunity to see some of its incredible / amazing Art Deco rooms.

Over the years that I worked at the Swiss firm, I spent a lot of time in the Waldorf and only then learned how hotels like that are much, much more than places to stay, because, with five or so restaurants, several world-famous bars and, as noted, some incredible meeting rooms and ballrooms (yes several), they also function as a business and cultural center. Even back then, when some of the architecture had been muddled, you still saw and appreciated the Art Deco grandeur - the scale of the Lobby is insane. (There was an early-in-this-century renovation to the lobby that was pretty spectacular, but the pictures in the article you linked to look even more incredible.)

Then, fast forward a few more years, I was hired to start up a trading floor for a large Boston bank and moved up to Boston. I traveled back to NYC regularly on business and one of the hotels that the bank had a corporate travel relationship with was the Waldorf. Surprisingly to me, but because the hotel is so large, they have a lot of small, not-that-expensive rooms which I ended up staying in on business several times a year. I also stayed at the Plaza and Hotel Intercontinental - two other pre-war gems - that we had corporate rates at. Most of my peers chose to stay at the more modern hotels like The W, but for me, being able to stay at these old beauties was incredible.

And since you could - all above aboard / fully disclosed - get the corporate rate for personal travel (that seemed to be changing when I was transitioning out of corporate American several years back), I stayed at the Waldorf (and the Plaza) with my girlfriend on several long weekends in the city - when the rates were particularly attractive.

One fun note. On one of those personal trips, we were upgraded (happened regularly because the company I worked for was a pretty large account - but never to this degree) to a Waldorf Tower suite ("The Towers" is the Waldorf's ultra-luxury hotel - within the main hotel at the Waldorf - where all the VIPs stay and some even keep suites as apartments there). We had expected a regular small room in the normal Waldorf, but owing to the upgrade, we were in a suite (living room with fireplace, pantry, sitting room, bedroom and gigantic bath) on the 41st floor with views facing in three directions. I never had before and probably never will stay in a nicer suite again (all for the corporate rate of a regular small room, if memory serves, about $200 a night / then, the suite's regular price was $1500 or something like that).

While we used those trips to explore the city, on one particularly cold and aggressively rainy day, we pretty much stayed in the hotel and, it's true, they are like small self-contained (fantasy) cities - fun to escape into for a day or so. Glad to see it is being brought back to its original grandeur. Thank you for posting the article.

 

[BlueTrain]

I've mentioned growing up in a small town, too, which nonetheless had a reasonably large hotel. The next closest town, of perhaps 30,000 people, had an even (presumably) larger hotel. These were places that would have had a white-table cloth restaurant and even a ballroom featuring live music, at lease down through the 1940s. And just like the men's shops in town, I was never in any of them. There are more hotels there than ever before, thanks to the town being a crossroads, but none have ballrooms. They might have meeting rooms but even big fancy hotels don't seem to have ballrooms anymore. Not what I'd call a ballroom, anyway.