By Elizabeth Hoover 6/12/06 12:00am

Long Before the Hilton Era, When Astors Roamed the Earth

“Like New York itself, the Waldorf-Astoria crystallized the improbable and fabulous,” wrote historian Lloyd Morris. “It was more than a mere hotel. It was a vast, glittering, iridescent fantasy that had been conjured up to infect millions of plain Americans with a new idea—the aspiration to lead an expensive gregarious life as publicly as possible.” Read More

By Judith H. Dobrzynski 10/10/05 12:00am

The Dark Side of Night- A Grim Gotham Nocturne

When I picked up Mark Caldwell’s New York Night, I was expecting a romp through Gotham’s fabled wee-hour life—restaurants, cabarets, theaters, jazz clubs, speakeasies, poetry readings. Mr. Caldwell, I thought, would escort me to Mrs. William Backhouse Astor’s famous gilded balls for the Four Hundred, and to the salons and parties that lit up Harlem Read More