Hilton boosts luxe hotel holdings in NYC

With the March closing of the Waldorf Astoria New York as part of a planned redevelopment, Hilton lost one of its largest footholds in the country's most lucrative hotel market. And it took about a New York minute to gain much of it back.

In October, Hilton took over the London NYC and announced plans to convert the 516-room hotel into a Conrad-branded property by 2019. The hotel will be Manhattan's second under Hilton's luxury Conrad badge, complementing the 463-room Conrad New York, which opened in lower Manhattan in 2012.

The London NYC addition followed Hilton's agreement in August to manage the One UN New York, the 439-room hotel that was built in 1976 on the upper floors of the two towers across from the United Nations headquarters. That hotel, which is owned by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, was rebranded as the Millennium Hilton New York One UN Plaza.

With the two agreements, Hilton picks up almost 1,000 upper-upscale and luxury rooms in midtown Manhattan, where it lost more than 1,400 rooms with the closure of the Waldorf.