The original Waldorf Hotel was built at 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue in 1893 by William Waldorf Astor. Four years later, John Jacob Astor IV, William’s cousin and familial rival, built an even taller hotel next door in an act of one-upmanship. The cousins finally agreed to a truce and the two buildings were connected through a 300 foot marble corridor known as Peacock Alley. The Waldorf-Astoria was born.

In 1931, the Waldorf Astoria re-opened in its current Park Avenue location, becoming the largest and tallest hotel in the world. Designed in the Art Deco style, it welcomed presidents, royals, movie stars, and cultural luminaries into its grand public spaces and palatial suites.

The Waldorf Astoria set a list of global precedents: the first hotel to have electricity on every floor, the first to have en suite baths, and the first to offer 24-hour room service. A rose topped each room service order that went out.

Cole Porter moved to Waldorf Astoria New York in 1934 and kept his residence until his death in 1964. The hotel’s managers gifted him a Steinway piano that he nicknamed “High Society” and on which he composed iconic songs such as “Anything Goes.” He called his ten-room, 33rd floor suite “a dream of beauty.”

The Waldorf Astoria is ensconced in American culture. Over the decades leading cultural figures performed, resided, or hosted parties here such as Andy Warhol, Tina Turner, and Mick Jagger. Ella Fitzgerald regularly sang in the Starlight Roof ballroom, and in later years, galas honoring the world’s most important people were fixtures of the social calendar.