SH Archive 1893 Waldorf and Astoria Hotels in New York

[KD Archive]

Sharing because these building were insane, especially the top portions:

• That original site was situated on Astor family properties along Fifth Avenue, opened in 1893, and designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh. It was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building.
• The original hotel started as two hotels on Fifth Avenue built by feuding relatives. The first hotel, the 13-story, 450-room Waldorf Hotel, designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in the German Renaissance style, was opened on March 13, 1893, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, on the site where millionaire developer William Waldorf Astor had his mansion. The original hotel stood 225 feet (69 m) high, with a frontage of about 100 feet (30 m) on Fifth Avenue, with an area of 69,475 square feet (6,454.4 m2). The original hotel was described as having a "lofty stone and brick exterior", which was "animated by an effusion of balconies, alcoves, arcades, and loggias beneath a tile roof bedecked with gables and turrets". William Astor, motivated in part by a dispute with his aunt Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, had built the Waldorf Hotel next door to her house, on the site of his father's mansion. The hotel was built to the specifications of founding proprietor George Boldt, who owned and operated the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, a fashionable hotel on Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife Louise. Boldt was described as "Mild mannered, undignified, unassuming", resembling "a typical German professor with his close-cropped beard which he kept fastidiously trimmed... and his pince-nez glasses on a black silk cord". Boldt continued to own the Bellevue even after his relationship with the Astors blossomed.
• Waldorf Astoria New York - Wikipedia

Astoria Hotel

Waldorf Hotel

​

KD: I still cannot get used to them demolishing masterpieces like these.

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[Timeshifter]

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Username: Timeshifter
Date: 2019-07-06 10:03:21
Reaction Score: 1

Sharing because these building were insane, especially the top portions:

View attachment 25046

• That original site was situated on Astor family properties along Fifth Avenue, opened in 1893, and designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh. It was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building.
• The original hotel started as two hotels on Fifth Avenue built by feuding relatives. The first hotel, the 13-story, 450-room Waldorf Hotel, designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in the German Renaissance style, was opened on March 13, 1893, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, on the site where millionaire developer William Waldorf Astor had his mansion. The original hotel stood 225 feet (69 m) high, with a frontage of about 100 feet (30 m) on Fifth Avenue, with an area of 69,475 square feet (6,454.4 m2). The original hotel was described as having a "lofty stone and brick exterior", which was "animated by an effusion of balconies, alcoves, arcades, and loggias beneath a tile roof bedecked with gables and turrets". William Astor, motivated in part by a dispute with his aunt Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, had built the Waldorf Hotel next door to her house, on the site of his father's mansion. The hotel was built to the specifications of founding proprietor George Boldt, who owned and operated the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, a fashionable hotel on Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife Louise. Boldt was described as "Mild mannered, undignified, unassuming", resembling "a typical German professor with his close-cropped beard which he kept fastidiously trimmed... and his pince-nez glasses on a black silk cord". Boldt continued to own the Bellevue even after his relationship with the Astors blossomed.
• Waldorf Astoria New York - Wikipedia

Astoria Hotel
View attachment 25045

Waldorf Hotel
View attachment 25047

View attachment 25048

KD: I still cannot get used to them demolishing masterpieces like these.

You have got to ask why? Why would you really demolish such intricate beauty?

Progress? Aesthetically speaking that didn't work.
Functionality? We've regressed not progressed.
Money? Certainly

Hide past master buildings?

100% this is the only thing that make ultimate sence to me.

Perhaps also, they couldn't figure out how to repair and maintain them? Could not replicate them, so demolish them in the name of progress?

Look what we are left with....

 

[Archive]

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Username: VonKitty
Date: 2019-07-06 12:08:40
Reaction Score: 8

To demolish something so grand makes no sense at all. Were these buildings so easily and quickly put together that they thought nothing of it, or was there a more sinister reason for their destruction? And it’s not just the exterior but the interior was so elaborate as well - with painted frescos, marble, decorative woodwork...
Makes me wonder, was everything just completely razed, or were rooms dismantled and materials used elsewhere?
This site has good photos, just too large to upload here The ORIGINAL Waldorf Astoria Was Insanely Lavish

If you look at the Myrtle Room on the site above, look at the the oval shapes in the upper right - it looks like vents covered in lattice work ? Does anyone know what those would be for? (photo below isn’t as clear)

And this site shows side-by-side comparison pics of then and now, most “then” pics being of the original hotel. So why tear down a magnificent hotel to rebuild it essentially the same but not quite as nice ?? Then & Now: NYC's Iconic Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Photos
(once again, photos are too large to upload)

 

[Archive]

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Username: Recognition
Date: 2019-07-06 15:25:48
Reaction Score: 1

To demolish something so grand makes no sense at all. Were these buildings so easily and quickly put together that they thought nothing of it, or was there a more sinister reason for their destruction? And it’s not just the exterior but the interior was so elaborate as well - with painted frescos, marble, decorative woodwork...
Makes me wonder, was everything just completely razed, or were rooms dismantled and materials used elsewhere?
This site has good photos, just too large to upload here The ORIGINAL Waldorf Astoria Was Insanely Lavish

If you look at the Myrtle Room on the site above, look at the the oval shapes in the upper right - it looks like vents covered in lattice work ? Does anyone know what those would be for? (photo below isn’t as clear)

View attachment 25070

And this site shows side-by-side comparison pics of then and now, most “then” pics being of the original hotel. So why tear down a magnificent hotel to rebuild it essentially the same but not quite as nice ?? Then & Now: NYC's Iconic Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Photos
(once again, photos are too large to upload)

Could be steam heating! Someone posted a video (might even be KD) about the use of steam heating in some of these gorgeous huge structures THAT IS STILL FUNCTIONING and heating these places. I'll try and find and link. The guy speaking said that when people start opening windows it messes with the pressure, interfering with functioning. Maybe that's what happened and they just covered up the vents

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-07-06 17:35:02
Reaction Score: 8

These are just two buildings, but there were hundreds of these in New York. Here is the Newspaper Row in 1905.

With all the other US cities in mind, what kind of construction industry capabilities did those people have?

 

[Timeshifter]

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Username: Timeshifter
Date: 2019-07-06 18:20:28
Reaction Score: 1

I dont beleive for a second that it was shovels, picks and horse and cart. What are we missing?

Where is the massive infrastructure?

 

[Archive]

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Username: VonKitty
Date: 2019-07-06 20:21:12
Reaction Score: 9

This blog site gives a good description and photos of the interior (and good posts on other historic NYC buildings) The Lost Waldorf-Astoria Hotel -- 5th Avenue at 33rd Street It says the original was destroyed because it went out of style, and some remnants were actually thrown into the ocean.

In 1928 the Waldorf-Astoria celebrated its 35th anniversary by decorating the lobby with baskets of flowers and flying flags from every flagpole. But flowers and flags could not stave off the inevitable. By now the Victorian trappings were severely out of date as modern hotels rose throughout the city.

By the end of the year the Bethlehem Engineering Corporation had purchased the “site” in a deal estimated at between $14 and $16 million. On May 3, 1929 the last guest walked out of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ending an era in belle époque history. Within a few weeks demolition crews were ripping down the grand hotel. The Palm Garden, Peacock Alley, and the mural-walled Dining Room fell under the wrecker’s ball.

The final indignation came when architectural residue--marble statuary and columns, bronze fittings and other elements—were illegally dumped into the Atlantic fifteen miles off the coast of New York.

In the picture below, I had noticed what looks to be a drop off of sorts in the bottom right. According to the blog’s author, that’s the demolition of the Alexander T. Stewart mansion/excavation for new building.

 

[Timeshifter]

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Username: Timeshifter
Date: 2019-07-07 06:24:49
Reaction Score: 0

The final indignation came when architectural residue--marble statuary and columns, bronze fittings and other elements—were illegally dumped into the Atlantic fifteen miles off the coast of New York.

I wonder what they were really hiding and why?

 

[Archive]

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Username: Red Bird
Date: 2019-07-07 14:06:50
Reaction Score: 1

ending an era in belle époque history

They tell us here, I think.

 

[dreamtime]

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Username: dreamtime
Date: 2019-11-18 18:07:51
Reaction Score: 1

If we take the idea seriously that these buildings came from a previous global civilization and were later co-opted by a semi-invisible predatory empire, that took over the ruins of the old one in the disguised name of colonialism and imperialism, then we know nothing of the past pre 1800.

The infrastructure, knowledge, and expertise needed to create the inherent symmetry and beauty of this global architectural phenomenon pushes the boundaries of what I can imagine, and it speaks about something profound happening in the 18th or even 19th century that made it possible for the robber barons to take over the achievements of the past.

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-11-18 18:41:20
Reaction Score: 1

Shouldn’t we make it pre-1920/1930?

 

[igneous]

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Username: igneous
Date: 2020-05-18 15:17:43
Reaction Score: 2

To demolish something so grand makes no sense at all. Were these buildings so easily and quickly put together that they thought nothing of it, or was there a more sinister reason for their destruction? And it’s not just the exterior but the interior was so elaborate as well - with painted frescos, marble, decorative woodwork...
Makes me wonder, was everything just completely razed, or were rooms dismantled and materials used elsewhere?
This site has good photos, just too large to upload here The ORIGINAL Waldorf Astoria Was Insanely Lavish

If you look at the Myrtle Room on the site above, look at the the oval shapes in the upper right - it looks like vents covered in lattice work ? Does anyone know what those would be for? (photo below isn’t as clear)

View attachment 25070

And this site shows side-by-side comparison pics of then and now, most “then” pics being of the original hotel. So why tear down a magnificent hotel to rebuild it essentially the same but not quite as nice ?? Then & Now: NYC's Iconic Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Photos
(once again, photos are too large to upload)

I found a higher quality photo and taken a screenshot of the area in question:

 

[Bunnyman]

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Username: Bunnyman
Date: 2020-05-20 08:11:10
Reaction Score: 1

Is it any wonder that Nicola Tesla lived in the Waldorf-Astoria!? If he wasn't a shill, he didn't seem to be the kind of guy to choose venues out of vanity and grandeur.