In the late 19th century, two great-grandsons of patriarch John Jacob Astor (and principal heirs to the family fortune) lived in neighboring mansions on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets. However, more than just a private garden separated cousins William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV, who despised each other. Declaring that “America is not a fit place for a gentleman to live,” William Waldorf Astor moved to England, and to spite the other branch of the family tree, he leveled his mansion and built the 13-story Waldorf Hotel, which opened in 1893—and dwarfed his cousin’s four-story brownstone. Upset to be living next to what he called “a glorified tavern,” John Jacob Astor IV tore down his mansion in 1895 to build the even grander 17-story Astoria Hotel, which opened in 1897. The cousins agreed to a truce and to unify the neighboring hotels under the Waldorf-Astoria name, with the hyphen serving as the tenuous connector between the two properties. (At times during the hotel’s history, a double hyphen was also used in its name. The hyphen, though, is no longer part of the hotel’s official name.)