My father and my years at the Waldorf-Astoria

My father, Clement Hakim, called the Waldorf-Astoria his home for many years starting in the early 1940s. General MacArthur and Herbert Hoover were close acquaintances since he served on the the General’s staff during WWII and President Hoover’s Food Mission staff after the war.

My father and mother were married in the Empire Room in 1947. After I was born in 1948, the three of us lived there for two years and I was wheeled around the lobby to the delight of everyone who worked there. After my parents divorced, my father resided at the Waldorf throughout the 1950’s. Dad’s many parties in the Empire Room, coordinated with noted maitre d’hôtel René Black, were notable and “the talk of the town.”

For many years after, and before the ATM machine were invented, I would occasionally cash a check at the cashier’s cage. The ladies working there still remembered me as a child and, of course, still remembered my father with great affection.