One stormy night, an elderly man and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia. Trying to get out of the rain, the couple approached the front desk hoping to get some shelter for the night.
“Could you possibly give us a room here?” the husband asked.
The clerk, a friendly man with a smile, looked at the couple and explained that there were three conventions in town. “All of our rooms are taken,” the clerk said. “But if you don’t mind, you can sleep in my room. It’s not exactly a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night.”
When the couple declined, the young man pressed on. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll make out just fine,” the clerk told them. So the couple agreed.
As he paid his bill the next morning, the elderly man said to the clerk, “You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel. Maybe someday I’ll build one for you.”
The clerk looked at them and smiled. The three of them had a good laugh. As they drove away, the elderly couple agreed that the clerk was indeed exceptional, as finding people who are both friendly and helpful isn’t easy.
Two years passed. The clerk had almost forgotten the incident when he received a letter from the old man. It recalled that stormy night and enclosed a round-trip ticket to New York, asking the young man to pay them a visit.
The old man met him in New York, and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. He then pointed to a new building there, a pale reddish stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the sky.
“That,” said the old man, “is the hotel I have just built for you to manage.”
“You must be joking,” the young man said.
“I can assure you I am not,” said the old man, a sly smile playing on his face.
The old man’s name was William Waldorf-Astor, and that magnificent structure was the original Waldorf-Astor Hotel. The young clerk who became its first manager was Geroge C Boldt. He never foresaw the turn of events that would lead him to become the manager of one of the world’s most glamorous hotels.
For over a century the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York has reigned as a symbol of the grandeur of the American dream. It all began when William Waldorf Astor razed his home at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street to construct the Waldorf, a magnificent hostelry that, when it opened on13th March 1893, boasted 450 rooms and an army of nearly 1,000 employees. The Waldorf hosted the most famous of guests and the most elegant of society functions (after John Jacob Astor IV built the Astoria next door in 1897, the two hotels were run jointly as the Waldorf-Astoria) until it was closed on 3 May 1929 to make way for what would become the world’s most famous skyscraper, the Empire State Building.
A new Waldorf-Astoria was constructed on the block extending from Park Avenue to Lexington, between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets and opened in 1931. Although it was William Waldorf Astor who conceived and financed the opulent Waldorf Hotel, it was the Waldorf’s first manager, George C. Boldt, who established the premiere level of service for which the Waldorf (and later the Waldorf-Astoria) became world-renowned. The story of how George C.Boldt, who came to America as a nearly penniless European immigrant, ended up as the manager of the finest hotel in the world is a rather remarkable one. It is a true story even if slightly embellished. Pic courtesy and more details at https://www.historichotelsthenandnow.com/