"The second Waldorf Astoria (without the hyphen) is the present one located at Park Avenue and East 49th Street. Opened in 1931, it was the largest, the tallest and the most expensive hotel ever built, not just succeeding its illustrious predecessor , but surpassing it in every way imaginable. Today, more than eighty years after its completion, the Waldorf Astoria remains the epitome of the grand hotel.

New York City’s Waldorf Astoria may well be the best known hotel in the world. Synonymous with grandeur, luxury and sophistication, its name has been appropriated by numerous pretenders from London to Shanghai, by the Waldorf’s own ubiquitous salad, and, somewhat amusingly, by one of Jim Henson’s Muppets.

The Waldorf Astoria has been celebrated (and occasionally excoriated) in both song and verse by such talents as Irving Berlin, Langston Hughes, Cole Porter, Wallace Stevens, and Thomas E. “Fats” Waller. It has been featured in countless books, plays, and movies, including a top-billed role in M-G-M’s 1945 melodrama, Weekend at the Waldorf. Thousands of people who have never set foot through its doors know the Waldorf Astoria by sight and reputation. Set in the very heart of the fashionable Fifth Avenue residential district, the new hotel was intended to cater specifically to the socially prominent ladies and gentlemen of New York and the increasing number of distinguished foreign visitors to the city from abroad. To them, the Waldorf proffered the finest in French cuisine, a telephone in every room, and the privacy of meals served in their chambers, the first room service. It surrounded them with the art and trappings of a European royal court and an army of servants seeing to their every wish. Clearly, the Waldorf was their hotel. And how did all this come about? It begins as a tale of two cousins..."

To learn more about all the Waldorf Astoria, check out William Alan Morrison's article in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.