Waldorf Astoria hotel closing for makeover

NEW YORK — The word “grand” matched few hotels in the world better than New York City’s Waldorf Astoria, but this bastion of gilded splendor is closing for two to three years for a transformative makeover.

When the building reopens, it will still have a hotel, but hundreds of its 1,400 guest rooms will have been converted into privately owned condominiums, according to a spokesman for the Anbang Insurance Group, the Chinese company that bought the storied hotel for nearly $2 billion in 2015.

The exterior is protected as a New York City landmark, but some fans are nervous about the future.

“I’ve been watching New York disappear in front of my eyes,” lamented Shade Rupe, 48, who recently visited the hotel’s lobby for one last look around.

Wrapping his arms around an entrance pillar, Rupe noted that the city has a history of devouring its own landmarks.

“There’s so little of what we’ve known as iconic New York left, and as soon as you say the Waldorf Astoria, that’s like saying the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty,” he said.

The hotel’s history dates to 1893, but the original was torn down to make way for the Empire State Building. The “new” Waldorf Astoria’s more than 40 stories opened on Park Avenue in 1931, built at a cost topping $40 million ($639 million in today’s dollars), making it one of the world’s largest and most expensive hotels at the time.

The hotel also lent its name to the Waldorf salad, a mix of apples, grapes, celery and walnuts that’s an American standard.

Renovation plans are not finalized, but some in the hotel industry said the new Waldorf will mirror New York’s Plaza hotel, which was renovated a decade ago into a mix of private apartments and a smaller hotel.

KATHY WILLENS/AP When New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel reopens in two to three years, hundreds of rooms will be private condos.