When New York's Most Opulent Hotels Were Demolished (The Waldorf and Astoria Hotels) скачать в хорошем качестве

When New York's Most Opulent Hotels Were Demolished (The Waldorf and Astoria Hotels)

The Astor family had two feuding cousins build the world's largest hotel before demolition began in 1929 after less than 40 years and the Empire State Building rose on the site. ——————— Gain FREE access to secret full-length episodes on architecture and wealthy family history "too scandalous for YouTube" by joining our newsletter: https://www.substack.com/@oldmoneyluxury ——————— TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Introduction 1:56 CHAPTER 1 — Palaces Raised From Rivalry 5:34 CHAPTER 2 — A Kingdom Built in Red Sandstone 10:01 CHAPTER 3 — The City Behind the Marble 14:12 CHAPTER 4 — A Palace Outpaced by Time 17:53 CHAPTER 5 — What Remains After the Marble Falls ——————— he Waldorf opened in 1893 with a German Renaissance façade carved in deep red sandstone, positioned deliberately by William Waldorf Astor beside his aunt Mrs. Caroline Astor's mansion in what neighbors called a commercial intrusion destroying Fifth Avenue's domestic calm. Caroline Astor dismissed the project as a "glorified tavern" while the public nicknamed it "Boldt's Folly" after Swiss-born manager George C. Boldt, who proved critics wrong by hosting a charity concert charging $5 tickets ($160 today) that filled the ballroom with New York's elite. The Waldorf generated over $4.5 million in first-year revenue—the modern equivalent of over $100 million—transforming mockery into Manhattan's most indispensable social address. John Jacob Astor IV watched his cousin's triumph and unveiled his counterstroke in 1897, the Astoria, a sixteen-story tower rising precisely where his mother Caroline's mansion had once stood. Architect Henry J. Hardenbergh designed both hotels, ensuring they shared visual language blending French Second Empire and Continental grandeur rendered in stone, marble, and brick across over 550 guest rooms and twenty-five public rooms in the Astoria alone. The Astoria's Louis XIV ballroom could seat 700 guests for banquets and over 1,000 for concerts, with season tickets costing what would now amount to more than $10,000 paid gladly by patrons who considered their presence as important as the music. The feuding cousins eventually called a truce, stitching their hotels together with a 300-foot interior corridor called Peacock Alley where society figures glided between buildings on polished marble floors in a protected artery for fashions, alliances, and quiet rivalries. This merger created the Waldorf-Astoria, the largest hotel in the world at the time and the unquestioned headquarters of New York's ceremonial life through the turn of the century. The Empire Room featured Empire-style mahogany and gold accents, the Marie Antoinette Parlor glowed with eighteenth-century French antiques, and the Gentleman's Café created a hunting-lodge fantasy with dark oak paneling and stag-horn fixtures. Behind the grand rooms operated a hidden city of more than 1,000 workers—mostly European immigrants—including elevator boys memorizing tycoon schedules, scullery maids cleaning mountains of dishes, and bellhops who once formed a "bucket brigade" hand-carrying water to fill Prince Henry of Prussia's bathtub when plumbing faltered. Oscar Tschirky—Oscar of the Waldorf—supervised kitchen brigades whose days began before dawn, while foreign dignitaries like China's Viceroy Li Hung Chang arrived with century-old eggs and personal kitchen staff. In April 1912 John Jacob Astor IV boarded the Titanic traveling home from Europe, helping women and children into lifeboats before disappearing into the freezing Atlantic when the ship struck ice. By the 1920s the hotel struggled to adapt to modern demands for private bathrooms in every room, reliable electric systems, better ventilation, and mechanical cooling—retrofitting the thick load-bearing stone walls would have cost a financial abyss. The Great Depression crash of 1929 erased fortunes and stripped away lavish expense accounts, while maintenance costs climbed as occupancy fell and the land beneath became more valuable than the structure sitting on it. Demolition began in 1929 after less than forty years standing, with workers dismantling copper trim, terracotta ornament, plaster ceilings, and carved wood from ballrooms that had hosted princes, presidents, and society hostesses. The nine-foot bronze clock commissioned for the 1893 World's Fair was carefully removed and transported to the new Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue opened in 1931, where it continues serving as both timekeeper and witness. Red sandstone blocks from the façade were shipped to Cornell University and incorporated into Boldt Hall, while individual pieces of marble, woodwork, and hardware scattered through collectors and salvage dealers. The Empire State Building rose on the cleared site, exchanging a horizontal palace for a vertical Art Deco statement that would become one of the most recognizable silhouettes on the planet.