FAMOUS HOTEL

Evening Star, Issue 25776, 26 April 1946, Page 2

FAMOUS HOTEL

NEW YORK'S WALDORF-ASTORIA BUILT ON STILTS The famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, on Park Avenue, New York, where Mr Churchill -spoke recently, and which is patronised by most distinguished visitors to the city, is really a house on stilts. _ Its 47 stories, with their twin towers rising sheer against the sky,, rest on columns embedded' deep in solid rock and spaced between the railway tracks of a busy terminal. It was an ingenious feat of engineering, especially as during construction normal railway traffic was maintained through the underlying Park Avenue tunnel to Grand Central terminal. FOUR FRONTAGES. A beautiful example of modern architecture, the hotel's stately facades face four frontages, and its 2 ; 200 guest rooms offer the most luxurious accommodation' in the hotel world of New York. Lavish expenditure has been controlled by excellent taste. The great lounges or lobbies, the various dining rooms, ballrooms, and other public rooms are exquisitely designed, as are the numerous apartments. There are French rooms, Louis Quinze •or Louis Seize; there are English rooms, Hepplewhite, Chippendale, or Sheraton; there are Swedish rooms in, lovely modern decoration; there are rooms in the American colonial period. A woman traveller now living in New Zealand recalls the deferential care of the staff—the thought that placed a rose on the breakfast trays of the thousands of women who slept in. " that Tower of Babel lost in the clouds." DANCE UNDER STARS. " You may live quietly or gaily, according to your taste,'_' she said. " There are apartments in the tower wing which offer complete privacy and seclusion, and have their own entrances and lifts. If you wish for gaiety you will find it at the tea and dinner danoGS in the lovely Empire room, with its grey and jade colour scheme,, or the glowing Sert room, surely one of the most beautiful rooms in the world." If, being a mere man, you wish to escape feminine society, the new Waldorf- bar gives you that seclusion.

Then there is the starlight room on the roof garden, where one can dine and dance under real stars in summer, electric in winter, and sup on open terraces commanding enchanting views of the city. The palatial ballroom is 135 ft in length and 120 ft in width. French marble and soft grey walls rise to 44ft from the third floor to the seventh. Two tiers of balconies and boxes around three sides of the room provide addi« tional space for diners or spectators. The Waldorf-Astoria, an integral part of the social life of _ New York, is more than just a magnificent hotel. It symbolises the revival of the romance and prestige that have characterised the Waldorf for mor« than four decades. It is an outstanding memory of a. visit to New York. Who vroaldn't be happy at a place whew? Icieplioiw number is prefaced hr the word i "Eldorado ".!