A Home Away From Home

I fell in love with New York City the first time I visited—a solo trip to the city via train to visit my cousin and explore the city. I fell in love with the city, the lights, as I took a taxi across the Washington Bridge to her small flat in Queens.

Five years later, I came back with my partner, Mike, for our second trip together. Valentine’s Day. He booked us a room at the Waldorf Astoria as a surprise because I had mentioned it as a dream place to stay. We fell in love instantly—the history, the building, and the people. Quintessential New York City. The very building breathes the life and history of the city.

We knew there couldn’t be another place for us. It immediately felt like home in the hustle and bustle of the city. Our last visit was three days before the doors shut for renovation. We were saddened our home away from home was closing down, but understood the need to preserve and move on—after all, what else could be more New York than progress?

We spent the final few evenings of the hotel’s opening roaming the halls, exploring all of the beautiful areas from the Starlight Roof Room to the Silver Corridor to the Grand Ballroom. Sitting in the lobby talking quietly over drinks, watching people coming and going, talking with people who had worked there, in some cases for 20+ years, their memories and stories woven in with the history of the building and now woven in with ours.

We love history. We love historical buildings, hotels, museums. And we have found many places to love and return to in our many travels over the years. But nothing has felt like home as much as walking into the lobby of the Waldorf—seeing and feeling the atmosphere of the rich dark wood, the historic clock tower, the quiet buzz of conversations.

Behind the rich extensive history, the celebrities who have walked the halls and stayed in the rooms, and the stunning Art Deco is a place to call home and feel like home when you’re in the city. And while the Waldorf has the history and architecture to back up its grandeur and name, it is the people who take it from a hotel to a home.

And we cannot wait to come back home to see her in all her restored glory and see the smiling faces of the people who work there and make the Waldorf experience, truly a home away from home.