It was designed specifically to cater to the needs of socially prominent "wealthy upper crust" of New York and distinguished foreign visitors to the city.

The original plans for the Waldorf were for a hotel with eleven stories; Louise believed that thirteen was a lucky number and persuaded her husband to add two floors to the construction.

[10][d] The Waldorf Hotel, named after the Astor family's ancestral hometown of Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, was opened for business March 13, 1893.

[16][e] Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt donated the services of the New York Symphony Orchestra led by Walter Damrosch to provide the music for the event.

[18] While Boldt made news by insisting the Waldorf's waiters be clean-shaven even though he wore a beard, his decision to hire young Oscar Tschirky was one of the key factors in the hotel's success.

[18] More than thirty years later, Tschirky was able to recall the Waldorf's opening day and the names of many of the Social Register guests who made the hotel successful when it hosted the charity concert and dinner.

[25] On November 1, 1897, Waldorf's cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, opened the 16 story Astoria Hotel on an adjacent site.

[45] The Waldorf-Astoria gained significant renown for its fundraising dinners and balls, regularly attracting notables of the day such as Andrew Carnegie who became a fixture.

[49] In 1909, banquets, attended by hundreds, were organized for Arctic explorer Frederick Cook in September and Elbert Henry Gary, a founder of US Steel, the following month.

[52] The United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic was opened at the hotel on April 19, 1912, and continued there for some time in the Myrtle Room,[53] before moving on to Washington, D.C.[54] John Jacob Astor IV was one of the people who perished on its ill-fated journey.

[56] The Waldorf-Astoria Bar was a favorite haunt of many of the financial elite of the city from the hotel's inception in 1893, and colorful characters who adopted the venue such as Diamond Jim Brady, Buffalo Bill Cody and Bat Masterson.

[34] The family included a stained glass picture of the town of Walldorf in the design of the hotel; it was located on the 33rd Street side over the main entrance to the South Palm Garden.

[67] One of the chief features was the interior garden court, with fountains and flowers, walls of white terracotta, frescoes and stained glass.

[70] It was modelled after the grand salon in King Ludwig's palace at Munich, with satin hangings, upholstery and marble pillars, all of pale green, and Crowninshield's frescoes.

[71] Empire in style, the Waldorf's restaurant featured feathered columns of dark-green marble, and the pilasters that were opposite were of mahogany, with ormolu work in the panels.

The apartments, including the Henry IV Drawing Room, featured 16th and 17th century French and Italian antiques which Boldt and his wife had brought back from Europe.

[72] Francois V Bedroom was a reproduction of the room at the Palais de Fontainebleau, and over the years was occupied by the likes of Li Hung-Chang of China, Chowfa Maha Rajiravuth, Prince of Siam, and Albert of Saxe-Coburg.

[73] The apartments had their own music room and a banquet hall to seat 20, with a handsome china collection including 48 Sevres plates with European portraits.

[67] The entrance featured a double set of plate glass doors to give protection in cold weather, and a U-shaped driveway for horse and carriages.

[77] The corridor and foyer were treated with pilasters and columns of Sienna marble and a color scheme on the walls and ceilings of salmon-pink, with cream-color and pale-green.

[34] Noted vocalists such as Enrico Caruso and Nellie Melba performed in the ballroom, with conductor Anton Seidl leading a series of concerts there in the year the combined hotels opened for business.

[34] On the roof on the 34th Street side was the grand promenade, 90 by 200 feet (27 m × 61 m), on solid footing high in the air, with a band stand, fountains, and trellises of columns.

Described as being a "very prickly sort of person", he had a background in Europe and earned wealth buying and selling country estates in England including Cliveden and Hever Castle.

[85] George Boldt (1851–1916), the founding proprietor, was a Prussian-born American hotelier and self-made millionaire who influenced the development of the urban hotel as a civic social center and luxury destination.

Boldt was described as "Mild mannered, undignified, unassuming", resembling "a typical German professor with his close-cropped beard which he kept fastidiously trimmed... and his pince-nez glasses on a black silk cord".

[23] Boldt retained his contacts with the European elite and he and his wife made frequent trips to Europe, bringing back with them many antiques, a characteristic of the Waldorf Astoria.

[88] Physically impressive and brassy, he displayed total dedication to his job and great discipline and care towards his staff, becoming one of the most famous hoteliers of his time.

[90] Although it was not disclosed at that time, at some point ownership of Louis Sherry Inc. was significantly vested in "Boomer-duPont interests", a reference to Lucius M. Boomer, then chairman of the Waldorf-Astoria, and T. Coleman du Pont.

James Remington McCarthy wrote in his book Peacock Alley that Oscar gained renown among the general public as an artist who "composed sonatas in soups, symphonies in salads, minuets in sauces, lyrics in entrees".

[91] In 1902 Tschirky published Serving a Course Dinner by Oscar of the Waldorf-Astoria, a booklet which explains the intricacies of being a caterer to the American and international elite.