The Waldorf-Astoria was a hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, built in 1893 and razed in 1929. It originated as two hotels, built side by side by feuding relatives, was expanded in 1897, and razed to make way for construction of the Empire State Building. Their successor, the current Waldorf Astoria New York, was built on Park Avenue in 1931.
The original Waldorf Hotel opened on March 13, 1893, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, on the site where millionaire developer William Waldorf Astor had previously built his mansion. Constructed in the German Renaissance style by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, it stood 225 feet (69 m) high, with 15 public rooms and 450 guest rooms, and a further 100 rooms allocated to servants, with laundry facilities on the upper floors. It was heavily furnished with antiques purchased by founding manager and president George Boldt and his wife during an 1892 visit to Europe. The Empire Room was the largest and most lavishly adorned room in the Waldorf, and soon after opening it became one of the best restaurants in New York, rivaling Delmonico's and Sherry's.