Plaza Hotel

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Plaza Hotel
(U.S. National Historic Landmark)
The Plaza Hotel as seen from the corner of 5th Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan
Location:	New York City
Built/Founded:	1907
Architect:	Henry J. Hardenbergh; Thomas Hastings, et al.
Architectural style(s):	Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals, Other
Designated as NHL:	June 24, 1986 [1]
Added to NRHP:	November 29, 1978[2]
NRHP Reference#:	78001878
Governing body:	Private

The Plaza Hotel in New York City is a landmark 19-story luxury hotel with a height of 250 feet (76 m) and length of 400 feet (120 m) that occupies the west side of Grand Army Plaza, from which it derives its name, and extends along Central Park South in Manhattan. Fifth Avenue extends along the east side of Grand Army Plaza.

Contents 1 Grand Army Plaza 2 The Plaza Hotel 3 Ownership changes and renovations 4 Movie backdrop 5 Future of the Plaza Brand 6 References and Sources 7 External links

[edit] Grand Army Plaza

The hotel's main entrance faces the southern portion of Grand Army Plaza— commemorating the Union Army in the Civil War. Grand Army Plaza is in two sections, bisected by Central Park South. The section in front of the Plaza Hotel is centered by the Pulitzer Fountain, of Abundance by Karl Bitter, funded by the will of the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer: the statue in the fountain is actually Pomona, Roman goddess of orchards. The north side of Grand Army Plaza, a cutout from Central Park, has the glorious Augustus Saint-Gaudens part-gilded bronze equestrian statue of General Sherman. Grand Army Plaza provided the original main entrance to the carriage drives of Central Park.

On the south side of the Plaza (between 58th and 59th Streets) once stood the French Renaissance château of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, designed by George Browne Post; rising behind its gated front court, it was the grandest of the Fifth Avenue mansions of the Gilded Age. Bergdorf Goodman occupies its site.

[edit] The Plaza Hotel

The Plaza is the second hotel of that name on the site. The French Renaissance château-style building was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh and opened to the public October 1, 1907. Originally the Plaza cost $12.5 million to build in 1907.

The Plaza was accorded landmark status by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1988 and is, with the Waldorf-Astoria, the only New York City hotel to be designated as a National Historic Landmark. In the 1950s it was the setting for Kay Thompson's series of Eloise books, Eartha Kitt and Peggy Lee played the Persian Room, unaccompanied ladies were not permitted in the Oak Room bar and the Palm Court was favored for luncheons and teas.

The Beatles stayed at the Plaza during their first visit to the United States in February, 1964.

On November 28, 1966, in honor of publisher Katharine Graham, Truman Capote hosted his acclaimed "Black & White Ball" in the Grand Ballroom.

In September 1985, the Plaza Accord was signed at the Plaza. The Accord served as an agreement among the finance ministers of the United States, Japan, West Germany, France and Britain to bring down the price of the U.S. dollar against their currencies.

The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978.^[1],^[3],^[4]

[edit] Ownership changes and renovations

Conrad Hilton bought the Plaza for $7.4 million in 1943 and spent $6.0 million to refurbish the original. Hilton called the Plaza the smartest hotel in America. Hilton later sold the Plaza when he bought the Waldorf-Astoria.

Donald Trump bought the Plaza for $407.5 million in 1988. Trump commented on his purchase in a full-page open letter he had published in The New York Times:

"I haven't purchased a building, I have purchased a masterpiece — the Mona Lisa. For the first time in my life, I have knowingly made a deal that was not economic — for I can never justify the price I paid, no matter how successful the Plaza becomes."

Trump sold the hotel for $325 million in 1995 to a partnership between Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Millennium & Copthorne Hotels.

It was sold again in 2004 for $675 million to a Manhattan developer, El Ad Properties. El Ad bought the hotel with plans of adding residential and commercial sections. Since The Plaza Hotel is a New York landmark, Tishman Construction Corporation, the construction management company hired to complete the renovations and conversions, had to take on the task of complying with landmark regulations.^[5] El Ad closed The Plaza on April 30, 2005, to undergo extensive renovations.^[6] It reopened on March 1, 2008.^[7] The Plaza offers 282 hotel rooms and 152 private condo hotel units and is managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. In May 2007, a new apartment in the Plaza was sold for a record $50 Million.[1]

[edit] Movie backdrop

Although the hotel had appeared briefly in earlier films, it made its major movie debut in the 1959 film North by Northwest. It was also a setting for Barefoot in the Park (1967), Funny Girl (1968), Plaza Suite (1971), The Way We Were (1973), Love at First Bite (1979), Arthur (1981), Cotton Club (1984), Brewster's Millions (1985), the first two Crocodile Dundee movies, Big Business (1988), King of New York (1990), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), It Could Happen to You (1994), Almost Famous (2000), and Inside the Osmonds (2001), and several episodes of The Sopranos (most notably "The Test Dream," Season 5, Episode 11) feature scenes occurring in a suite at the Plaza.

Then-Plaza owner Donald Trump appears in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, directing the main character Kevin to the lobby.

The book Eloise at the Plaza and its film adaptations Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime are set here as well. The Plaza was featured notably in the original 1956 TV movie Eloise, starring Evelyn Rudie as Eloise, the child who lived "on the top floor", with cameo appearances by Conrad Hilton and Eloise author Kay Thompson.

[edit] Future of the Plaza Brand

The El Ad Group, which owns the New York Plaza Hotel, plans to expand the "Plaza" brand name with new luxury hotels in the top cities of the world such as London, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Rome and Washington, D.C. The first of these new Plaza's was announced, on May 16, 2007, as the Las Vegas Plaza ; a $5 Billion multi-use ultra-luxury hotel, private residence, retail and gaming complex to be developed on the Las Vegas Strip opposite Wynn Las Vegas. Construction will begin in early 2008 and is expected to be completed in 2011[2].

[edit] References and Sources

• amNew York Interactive report on The Plaza
• The WPA Guide to New York City, 1939 (reprinted 1982) (ISBN 0-394-71215-3)
• Ward Morehouse III, Life at the Top

[edit] External links

• The Plaza Residences Official Website for Residences
• The Plaza Official Hotel Website
• The Plaza Hotel, from the website of a former New York Post architecture critic
• The Plaza: How it was Sold, a December 2004 article from a NYC real estate website
• The Plaza Says It'll Be History After April 30, a March 2005 New York Times article (registration required)
• The Plaza Lives! - an oral history of the Plaza Hotel that appeared in New York magazine in May 2005.
• Fairmont to manage New York City's Plaza Hotel - CBC News report.
• The Plaza Hotel - New York Architecture Images
• "Eloise" (1956) - IMDB
• Ward Morehouse III, author of Life at the Top and Inside The Plaza: An Intimate Portrait of the Ultimate Hotel

Coordinates: 40.764712° N 73.974574° W

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