Waldorf Astoria New York – an Art Deco icon, restored

At 301 Park Avenue, the Waldorf Astoria New York closed its doors on 1 March 2017 and did not open them again for eight years, finally welcoming guests back on 15 July 2025. Completed in 1931 to designs by Schultze and Weaver, the 47-storey, 625-foot Art Deco tower was the world's tallest hotel until 1957. Hilton, which began managing the property in 1949 and bought it outright in 1972, lost the building in 2015 when the Chinese insurer Anbang paid 1.95 billion dollars for it; Hilton stayed on as operator through the restoration that followed, led by architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with interiors by Pierre-Yves Rochon, which reduced the room count from roughly 1,400 to 375. The MICHELIN Guide gives the result Two Keys, singling out its elegant suites, among them the Waldorf Astoria Suite with its own grand piano.

01The house

The 1931 building occupies a full city block between 49th and 50th Streets and is crowned with a pair of towers rising in the stepped massing typical of Art Deco. Both the limestone-and-brick exterior and a sequence of ground-floor interiors are protected as New York City landmarks, the exterior since 1993 and the interiors since 2017. Above the Park Avenue entrance stands a ten-foot bronze-and-nickel statue, 'Spirit of Achievement', sculpted by the Icelandic artist Nina Saemundsson and chosen from four hundred entries in a competition held when the hotel opened. Beneath the hotel runs Track 61, a disused rail spur once used to bring presidents and other dignitaries into the building away from the street.

The restoration restored rather than reinvented. The Basildon Room, an eighteenth-century English dining room shipped whole from Basildon Park Manor in Berkshire, has been brought back, as has the Grand Ballroom's plaster ceiling and the Silver Corridor that links the hotel's heritage event spaces. At the centre of it all sits the lobby's 1893 clock, commissioned by Queen Victoria for Chicago's World's Fair and later acquired by the Astor family, which now anchors what the hotel calls the Clock Lounge.

02Rooms and suites

Cutting a hotel that once held around 1,400 rooms down to 375 freed up space, and the result is among the largest standard footprints in Manhattan. Interiors throughout are by the French designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, arranged across eleven categories, from the 475-square-foot King Room with its marble-vanity bathroom and deep soaking tub, up through Junior Suites with Park Avenue or Lexington Avenue views.

Insider tip

Book Lex Yard and Yoshoku ahead, and ask for a Park Avenue-facing room with views over Midtown.

At the top sit five signature suites added in the autumn of 2025, ranging from the 1,570-square-foot Manhattan Suite, with its own formal dining room and full kitchen, to the Waldorf Astoria Suite, more than 5,000 square feet with a piano, a media room and the option to connect into a four-bedroom apartment. MICHELIN's inspectors singled out this suite's grand piano among the hotel's most memorable details.

03Where to eat

Lex Yard, the hotel's signature restaurant, is led by chef partner Michael Anthony in a two-storey American brasserie, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner from a kitchen known for dishes such as a gold caviar sando and slow-poached halibut in borscht sauce. A few steps from Park Avenue, Yoshoku continues the hotel's long run of culinary firsts with a kaiseki-focused dining experience from chef Ry Nitzkowski, offering both a tasting menu and à la carte options. The old Bull and Bear steakhouse, a fixture of the previous era, has not reopened.

04The bar

Peacock Alley began life in 1897 as the 300-foot marble corridor linking the original Waldorf and Astoria hotels, and took its name from the society writers who watched New York's wealthiest promenade up and down it in their finery. Its reborn version keeps Cole Porter's piano beside the Grand Clock, and the old invitation to 'meet me at the clock' still holds, with the space opening for breakfast, coffee and afternoon tea before turning into a cocktail room each evening.

The drinks programme for Peacock Alley and Lex Yard is by Jeff Bell, managing partner of the East Village speakeasy Please Don't Tell, whose bars have collected World's Best Bar honours and a James Beard Award. The list reaches back into the hotel's own history for recipes such as the Waldorf Cocktail, built on rye whiskey, sweet vermouth and a dash of absinthe.

05Spa and wellbeing

Guerlain Wellness Spa, more than 20,000 square feet, opened in the autumn of 2025 as one of the final pieces of the hotel's return, alongside a state-of-the-art fitness centre. The spa combines sixteen treatment rooms, including two VIP suites, with a Moroccan hammam, an infra-red sauna and an arctic snow cave, plus dedicated relaxation lounges and a Guerlain retail boutique. A separate fitness centre on the fifth floor, with free weights and Peloton bikes, is open to guests around the clock.

06The neighbourhood

Midtown East places the hotel within easy reach of Fifth Avenue's flagship stores, St Patrick's Cathedral and Grand Central Terminal. The hotel leans on exactly this position, promising guests convenient access to the city's shopping, dining, entertainment and cultural attractions, whether they are visiting for the first time or returning as New Yorkers who grew up hearing stories about the place.

07Making the most of a stay

Reservations for the reopened hotel first went on sale on 10 December 2024 for stays later in 2025, and the property then rolled out in stages through what it called its opening season: rooms and Peacock Alley in July, Lex Yard and Yoshoku through the summer, and by September the 43,000 square feet of event space, including the three-storey Grand Ballroom, Basildon Room, Jade Room and Astor Salon. Book Lex Yard or Yoshoku ahead of a stay, and leave time to walk the restored lobby and Silver Corridor before heading out — this is as much a public monument as a private hotel.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.