Peacock Alley

Peacock Alley may refer to:

Waldorf Astoria New York

The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel in Manhattan, New York City. The hotel has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York. The first, bearing the same name, was built in two stages, which accounts for its dual name. The original hotel, situated on Astor properties along Fifth Avenue, was completed in 1893 and designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh. It was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building. The present building, at 301 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, is a 47-story 190.5 m (625 ft) Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultze and Weaver, which was completed in 1931. The current hotel was the world's tallest hotel from 1931 until 1963, when it was surpassed by Moscow's Hotel Ukraina by 7 metres (23 ft). An icon of glamour and luxury, the current Waldorf Astoria is one of the world's most prestigious and best known hotels.

From its inception, the Waldorf Astoria gained international renown for its lavish dinner parties and galas, often at the center of political and business conferences and fundraising schemes involving the rich and famous. Particularly after World War II it played a significant role in world politics and the Cold War, culminating in the controversial World Peace Conference of March 1949 at the hotel, in which Stalinism was widely denounced. Conrad Hilton acquired management rights to the hotel on October 12, 1949, and the Hilton Hotels Corporation finally bought the hotel outright in 1972. It underwent a $150 million renovation by Lee Jablin in the 1980s and early 1990s, and in October 2014 it was announced that the Anbang Insurance Group of China had purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York for US$1.95 billion, making it the most expensive hotel ever sold.

Peacock Alley (jazz club)

Peacock Alley was one of St. Louis's most important jazz clubs in the 1950s. Located on Delmar St., not Gaslight Square as it has been incorrectly reported on the internet. It attracted performances from Miles Davis, John Coltrane, the Chet Baker Quartet, J.J. Johnson, Max Roach, Kai Winding, Art Blakey and many others. Davis' album Miles Davis Quintet at Peacock Alley was recorded there over two weekends in July 1957 (http://www.kind-of-blue.de/seiten/disco/peacock_alley.htm) The album was taken from a radio show and is a bootleg. The sound is barely passable but an important bit of history none the less.

It closed in the 1960s.

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