Waldorf Astoria
The Waldorf’s guest rooms are generously proportioned now, after an 8-year-long renovation (completed in 2025) reduced the number from 1400 to just 375, and upped the average size to 575 square feet. And they have such luxuries as Frette sheets, Aesop bath products, espresso machines, and full bathtubs (in 70% of the rooms). But there are hotel guestrooms in the city with more style (these are a bit generic looking), and more amenities for sure. What the competition doesn’t have, and why staying here is such a treat, is the Waldorf Astoria’s extraordinary history. I mean: that’s Cole Porter’s piano in the Peacock Alley bar, brought down here from what was his apartment upstairs (from 1939 to 1964, some of the composer’s most fruitful years). That piano was also used by Frank Sinatra, who lived in that same apartment after Porter. (Look closely and you can see marks on the piano top from the pitchers of margaritas Porter ordered up from the lobby bar.) You also come here to dine on Waldorf salads, and throw back Rob Roy cocktails, in the place where both were invented. You stay because the Waldorf still looks much like it did in 1931—most of the interior public spaces are landmarked—when this iteration of the hotel opened as the largest and tallest one on the planet. And when you close your eyes to sleep, you just may have Presidential dreams: every U.S. President from Hoover to Obama bunked here at one time or another. So book, or just walk through, the Waldorf Astoria, so you too can become part of history.
The Waldorf’s guest rooms are generously proportioned now, after an 8-year-long renovation (completed in 2025) reduced the number from 1400 to just 375, and upped the average size to 575 square feet. And they have such luxuries as Frette sheets, Aesop bath products, espresso machines, and full bathtubs (in 70% of the rooms). But there are hotel guestrooms in the city with more style (these are a bit generic looking), and more amenities for sure. What the competition doesn’t have, and why staying here is such a treat, is the Waldorf Astoria’s extraordinary history. I mean: that’s Cole Porter’s piano in the Peacock Alley bar, brought down here from what was his apartment upstairs (from 1939 to 1964, some of the composer’s most fruitful years). That piano was also used by Frank Sinatra, who lived in that same apartment after Porter. (Look closely and you can see marks on the piano top from the pitchers of margaritas Porter ordered up from the lobby bar.) You also come here to dine on Waldorf salads, and throw back Rob Roy cocktails, in the place where both were invented. You stay because the Waldorf still looks much like it did in 1931—most of the interior public spaces are landmarked—when this iteration of the hotel opened as the largest and tallest one on the planet. And when you close your eyes to sleep, you just may have Presidential dreams: every U.S. President from Hoover to Obama bunked here at one time or another. So book, or just walk through, the Waldorf Astoria, so you too can become part of history.
Details
Bookstore
Available as paperback
and as e-book.
