Template:POTD/2009-08-26
A sketch of the original
William Waldorf Astor, whose 13-story Waldorf Hotel was opened in 1893, located on the current site of the Empire State Building, and the other owned by his cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, called the Astoria Hotel and opened four years later in 1897, four stories higher. Initially foreseen as two separate entities, founding proprietor George Boldt
planned the new structure so it could be connected to the old, and the combined hotel became the largest in the world at the time. The Waldorf-Astoria relocated to its present location in 1931.