On October 1, 1929, a [L3 403 / truck rolled through] the main door of the Waldorf-Astoria, and the demolition began. It was, as Alfred E Smith proclaimed, "a casualty of the march of progress."
Sixteen thousand truckloads of debris were hauled away from the demolition of the Waldorf, carted five miles beyond Sandy Hook, New Jersey and dumped into the sea. A 700-man crew, using derricks, compressors and oxyacetylene burners, worked through the winter to remove the building.
