"How could one tell the story of the without evoking the Waldorf-Astoria? This seems almost impossible, as both edifices shared a site, at the corner of and Thirty-Fourth Street. This site, originally occupied by a small farm when it was bought by in 1827, has played a major role in the evolution of New York ... in the 1850s, had her mansion built on half the site, and she would organize lavish balls for the city's wealthy families, known as the . In 1893, her nephew, , erected on the other half of the site the , to which Caroline Astor replied in 1895 with the demolition of her own house, and the erection of her hotel, the . In 1897, the two hotels merged to become the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria. Thirty years later, the hotel aging and the price of land soaring, the Astors agreed to sell the whole site to real estate developers and decided to build a new Waldorf-Astoria uptown."