The latest delay in reopening the iconic Waldorf Astoria hotel — to spring of next year, as I predicted would happen in early 2023 — is the latest insult to New York City by a Chinese company interested mainly in selling super-luxury condo apartments to globetrotting investors who might never turn on the lights.
To the Dajia Insurance Group, which took control of the Waldorf three years ago when another Chinese company collapsed, the fabled property’s great public spaces like Peacock Alley might as well be chopped liver — if they even understand what it means.
Sure, the Waldorf will reopen some day. But Hilton, which manages the property, let word dribble out last week that the re-launch initially scheduled for late this year is pushed back again to sometime in spring 2025 — and that’s merely the “expected” time frame.
The great landmark is still undergoing an eight years-and-counting restoration and redesign. Eight years! (Hilton sold it to Anbang in 2014 for $1.95 billion. Dajia took over when the government in Beijing dissolved Anbang for murky reasons.)
The Waldorf, a powerful skyline presence and symbol of Manhattan glamour was home to the legendary Peacock Alley and was the stomping grounds of Cole Porter, Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe before closing in February 2017.
The Waldorf re-launch was first touted for 2020 — and then for 2021, 2022 and 2023.
It will have 375 hotel rooms and suites compared with the original 1,400, although the new ones will be twice as large, as well as 375 condo residences priced from $1.8 million to $20 million.
But the collapse of Anbang, followed by the exit of the Waldorf’s US project manager in early 2023, contributed to repeated slowdowns on top of pandemic-related ones.
Today, most of the building’s ground and second floors appear as raw space through windows and open doors — except for a gleaming Park Avenue sales office with Cole Porter’s piano on display.
The building’s current condition is also a nuisance to nearby businesses. An employee at Fresh & Co. across street said, “It’s the great black hole of Lexington Avenue. People don’t like walking here from uptown.”
Landmark restorations don’t happen overnight. But the Plaza Hotel, which was elaborately redesigned to include condos, got the job done in just three years. It took less than four years to build One Vanderbilt, a 1,401-foot tall skyscraper from top to bottom.
The still-dark Waldorf is an embarrassment to Hilton, which launched a “Waldorf Astoria Collection” of luxury inns and resorts around the world in 2006. (The division is now called “Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts.”)
Of course, all that’s missing is the real Waldorf Astoria.
Earlier this year, Hilton launched a publicity campaign to convince the world that a new Waldorf Astoria was truly coming.
Gramercy Tavern chef Michael Anthony was named “culinary consultant in charge” of a planned, yet-to-be-named, two-level American brasserie on the ground floor and mezzanine.
Also pressed into the media mill were the hotel’s managing director Luigi Romaniello, Hilton luxury brands head Dino Michael and interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, who shared their enthusiasm for the “new” Waldorf.
Even secretive Dajia got into the act. Project director Ray Gu told The Wall Street Journal, “The Waldorf had lacked, let’s say, improvements, for many, many years.”
He must have missed La Chine, the wonderful modern-Chinese restaurant that replaced miserable Oscar’s in 2015.
Hotel industry boosters, however, remain upbeat. Vijay Dandapani, the CEO and president of the Hotel Association of NYC, said, “I don’t make too much of the latest pushback by a few months as I see construction moving apace on a daily basis. It should be a very special albeit much smaller hotel when it reopens.”
But an Oscar’s sign still inexplicably hangs over the Lexington Avenue at East 50th Street corner. At this rate, it might soon be the only evidence that a Waldorf Astoria ever existed.
