Chinese insurance company buys New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

NEW YORK, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- A Chinese insurance company has promised to restore New York's landmark Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to the luxury that greeted guests when it opened in 1931.

Hilton Worldwide announced Monday that Anbang Insurance Group had agreed to pay $1.95 billion for the 47-story, 1,413-room hotel on Park Avenue. Under the sale agreement, Hilton will continue to operate the Waldorf under a 100-year management agreement.

The Waldorf was the successor to earlier hotels of the same name -- the first on a site now occupied by the Empire State Building and the second just south of Grand Central Terminal. Its luxurious fittings so impressed Conrad Hilton that he wrote "the greatest of them all" on a newspaper photograph and bought the property 18 years later.

The current hotel occupies an entire city block between Park and Lexington and 49th and 50th streets. It is the flagship property in Waldorf-Astoria Hotels & Resorts, created in 2007 to operate hotels around the world, including Beijing.

"The Chinese have money to spend and the inclination to do so," said Sean Hennessey, chief executive of Lodging Advisors, told the New York Times. "The property will continue to be an iconic hotel even if it's owned by a foreign entity."