Word: waldorfized
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Dying Arts. Claude Philippe knows how radically the hotel business has changed since the Waldorf and he were young. The success of a hotel today, says he, depends on a "judicious use of space," not mere luxury. "While I think waste space is the epitome of luxury, we have to decide what kind of waste space suits today's living and today's economics. We don't need a reading room or writing room any more. No one uses them; correspondence is a dying art. We have no need of a tearoom...
...judicious use of space is indeed essential, the Summit rates high. The $25 million building is tucked in neatly on a 100-ft. by 320-ft. corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, has 800 rooms, 21 stories, and looks compact enough to be stored in the Waldorf lobby. It is the handiwork of Architect Morris Lapidus, whose chief triumphs are the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau hotels in Miami Beach. Thus the décor can be described as something between Bronx baroque and Mexicali modrun. A graceful, serpentine curve of the long exterior wall on 51st Street...
...Queen of Siam were on hand for the first luncheon. President Herbert Hoover spoke from Washington. Even in the chauffeurs' waiting room, champagne flowed. Mr. Bagby's Musical Mornings were scheduled in the ballroom (Kirsten Flagstad, Giovanni Martinelli, et al.). Thus, 30 years ago, the new Waldorf-Astoria opened on Manhattan's Park Avenue, setting a tone of stately, if slightly too chromium-plated, elegance that lasted nearly into the days of Hiltonization. This week, for the first time since the Waldorf debut, a new hotel opened in Manhattan, but the atmosphere was different...
...with a flack-picked guest list. The kings, if any, have yet to make their appearance, the chauffeurs' waiting room has given way to a drive-yourself rental agency, and as for the late Mr. Bagby, he was not even replaced by Muzak. The one link to the Waldorf era: Claudius Charles Philippe, for many years the Waldorf's shrewd general factotum, is now the Tisches' executive vice president and general manager...
...until he read in Washington a translated press clipping from Pakistan's biggest daily newspaper, Jang, that "the U.S. Vice President has invited Bashir, a camel-cart driver, to come to America. My, Bashir is certainly lucky. He will go by jet and stay in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York." Faced with a féte accompli, Lyndon did the sporting thing: at a televised People-to-People luncheon, he suggested that it would be nice if someone helped Bashir get to the U.S. People-to-People Program, an independent group of international-minded Americans, promptly volunteered...