Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (and Neighbors), NYC, 2017.
All the pixels, each with an 11am checkout time, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/32609074081
Discussion
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@mattblaze outstanding. How did you get the atmosphere to cooperate?
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@noplasticshower friends in high places?
@mattblaze prescient use of the butterfly effect as a young boy?
@mattblaze this one looks like Batman is going to appear in the front, looking for the batsignal in the beige sky.
Any minute now.
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This was captured with a DSLR and a 19mm shifting lens, from a balcony of another building.
It's mostly an exercise in angles and symmetry. The vaguely wedge-shaped dark cloud that appeared overhead, following the lines of the buildings, created a fortuitous moment.
The Waldorf was closed for an extensive renovation shortly after this was made. It only recently re-opened. Many of the rooms have been converted into condo apartments.
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The Waldorf-Astoria is perhaps New York's most prominent monument to jazz age luxury and glamor. It's been the traditional residence for US presidents and foreign heads of state when in town (the "presidential suite" was meant rather literally there).
Built over the below-grade railyard of Grand Central Terminal, the hotel was equipped with a private rail siding and platform where guests could park their personal railcars(!). (Andy Warhol once threw a party on the platform.)
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@mattblaze A private siding under a hotel? That's REALLY cool. Thank you for sharing.
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@msbellows @mattblaze that is super cool. I wonder if that siding and platform are still there?
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@bud_t @msbellows It is! Known as "track 61". But no longer used for hotel guests' railcars, which I presume doesn't come up very often in any case.
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@mattblaze @bud_t If I had won that $1 billion Powerball I *totally* would buy a personal Pullman car, tour the country in style, and insist on parking it under the Waldorf-Astoria.
@msbellows @bud_t Also the first thing I'd do.
