The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ca. 1901.

The 450-room Waldorf Hotel (smaller building, left), designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, opened in March 1893. Four years later, the Astoria Hotel (center and right) opened on the same block. The two hotels were connected by a set of corridors, together forming the world’s largest hotel building.

In 1929, the hotel was demolished ahead of the construction of the Empire State Building, with a new Waldorf Astoria constructed on Park Avenue, between 49th and 50th Streets.