Waldorf Astoria to be renovated

The word "grand" matched few hotels in the world better than New York City's Waldorf Astoria, but this bastion of gilded splendor is now closing for two to three years for a transformative makeover. When the building reopens, it will still have a hotel, but hundreds of its 1,400 guest rooms will have been converted into privately owned condominiums, according to a spokesman for the Anbang Insurance Group, the Chinese company that bought the storied hotel for nearly $2 billion in 2015.