John Jacob Astor IV Alida Rebecca Armstrong, Astor was also a great-grandson of Senator John Armstrong, Jr. and Alida Livingston of the Livingston family. His maternal grandparents were Abraham Schermerhorn, a wealthy merchant, and socialite Helen Van Courtlandt White. He was also a nephew of financier and philanthropist John Jacob Astor III, and grandnephew of occasional poet John Jacob Astor, Jr. His sister Helen's husband was diplomat James Roosevelt "Rosey" Roosevelt, half-brother of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the Roosevelt family. Another sister, Carrie, a noted philanthropist, was the wife of Marshall Orme Wilson (brother of banker Richard Thornton Wilson, Jr. and socialite Grace
Waldorf–Astoria (1893–1929) streets, for $20,500. He built an unpretentious square red brick house on the southwest corner of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, while John Jacob Astor erected a home at the northwest corner of 33rd Street. William Astor, motivated in part by a dispute with his aunt Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, built the Waldorf Hotel next door to her house, on the site of his father's mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street. His father was the millionaire developer, William Waldorf Astor. The hotel was built to the specifications of founding proprietor George Boldt, who owned and operated