That roof sounds really neat. Sort of like the retractable hardtop cars of
the late '50s.   Why don't they use it anymore?  That'd be something to
come to NY to see.  Ruth



At 9:34 AM -0500 1/2/03, Met History wrote:
In a message dated 1/2/03 9:25:14 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:

Later it was the Starlight Room of New York's Waldorf-Astoria, then the
world-wide telecasts.



I first saw this unusual room last year, at the benefit dance where, while
my wife was out of the room,  I bid $1700 on a small Harley (luckily, there
were deeper pockets in the room, and it went for $29,000.)  On (about) the
25th floor, the first setback of the 1931 Waldorf, this 200 foot long, 60
foot wide clear span space is perhaps 50 feet high. The "starlight" part
derives from its unusual slide-retracting roof, now long since locked into
position.  Such sliding roofs were once fairly common in
pre-airconditioning New York, especially on roof gardens and theatres.
Another one survives (also fixed in place) on Carrere & Hastings' old
Lunt-Fontanne theater - it is fixed in place, but the original roller
equipment still survives on the roof, encased in roofing tar like a wooly
mammoth.

The size of the Waldorf's retractible roof makes it, I suspect, the largest
ever erected (or perhaps, retracted?) in New York.  Do any BP subscribers
know of any larger ones out there, before the advent of sliding dome stadia?

Christopher Gray

--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Westminster, VT

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>