New York, through three hotel rooms

New York’s architectural history can be encountered at the scale of a room. The Waldorf Astoria, Lotte New York Palace and St. Regis preserve different ways of arranging an arrival, an evening or a table.

The Waldorf’s restored Grand Ballroom returns attention to its 1931 Art Deco setting. Peacock Alley supplies another register, with the historic clock and the social ritual of sitting within a substantial public interior.

At Lotte Palace, the Villard Mansion’s Gold Room connects the hotel with an 1882 domestic world of gilding, arches and decorative work. The St. Regis, opened in 1904, offers its own focal point through Maxfield Parrish’s Old King Cole mural.

The three addresses do not tell one interchangeable story. Their interiors make differences in period, scale and social use visible, giving Manhattan’s past a physical presence beyond the skyline.