Plaza Hotel

For other uses, see Plaza Hotel (disambiguation).

Coordinates: 40°45′53″N 73°58′28″W / 40.764712°N 73.974574°W / 40.764712; -73.974574

Plaza Hotel

The Plaza Hotel as seen from the corner of 5th Avenue and 58th Street in Manhattan
Location 768 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City 10019
Built 1907
Architect Henry J. Hardenbergh; Thomas Hastings, et al.
Architectural style Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals
NRHP Reference # 78001878
Significant dates
Added to NRHP November 29, 1978[1]
Designated NHL June 24, 1986 [2]
Designated NYCL December 9, 1969

The Plaza Hotel, located in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, New York City, is a landmark 20-story luxury hotel and condominium apartment building, owned by an Indian conglomerate, Sahara India Pariwar.

Location

With a height of 250 ft (76 m) and a length of 400 ft (120 m), the hotel 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. The Plaza Hotel is recognized as a Historic Hotel of America by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[3][4]

Description

Grand Army Plaza

Plaza Hotel, ca. 1920
The Plaza Hotel and its International Modern style neighbors, as seen from across The Pond in Central Park

The hotel's main entrance at 768 Fifth Avenue faces the southern portion of Grand Army Plaza, which commemorates the Union Army in the Civil War, whence its eponymous predecessor derived its name.[5]

Facilities

The Plaza Hotel offers its guests and residences many services including a butler on every floor, baby-sitting and concierges, a shopping mall, the Palm Court under the restored stained glass ceiling, the Champagne Bar located in the hotel lobby with views of Grand Army Plaza, the Edwardian Room, the Terrace Room, the Rose Club, the Grand Ball Room, the Plaza Food Hall by Todd English, as well as meeting rooms and conference rooms. The Grand Ballroom, Terrace Room and meeting spaces are currently managed by CPS Events, a joint venture between Delaware North Companies and the high end caterer Great Performances. The Oak Room, now closed, was another restaurant in the Plaza.

History

The Plaza Hotel turned 100 years old in 2007, celebrating with ceremonies and fireworks.

The Plaza Hotel 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 on October 1, 1907. At the time, it cost $12.5 million to construct. When the hotel opened, a room at the Plaza Hotel was only $2.50 per night, the equivalent of $63.60 today. The same room costs over 15 times as much today.[6]

Alphonse Salamone joined the hotel in 1947, although later left to accept a position in San Juan at the Caribe Hilton. He returned the hotel and helped it out of hardship during the 1960s.[7] The Plaza Hotel was accorded landmark status by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1969; it was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1986.[2][8]

The hotel offers tours of its interior to the public.

Famous uses

Long the site for famous performers and guests, it has also been the meeting place for important political meetings. The nationally known singers Josephine Baker, Eartha Kitt, Liza Minnelli, Marlene Dietrich, Lena Horne, Kay Thompson, Sandler and Young, Ethel Merman, Shirley Bassey, Andy Williams, The Mills Brothers, Patti Page and Peggy Lee played the Persian Room; Miles Davis recorded a live album in the hotel's Persian Room in 1958; unaccompanied ladies were not permitted in the Oak Room bar; and women favored the Palm Court for luncheons and teas. The Beatles stayed at the Plaza Hotel during their first visit to the United States in February 1964.[6] On November 28, 1966, in honor of the publisher Katharine Graham, the writer Truman Capote hosted his acclaimed "Black and White Ball" in the Grand Ballroom. The ballroom was also the site, in 1993, of Donald Trump's wedding to Marla Maples in front of 1,500 guests.[9]

In September 1985, ministers of developed countries met at the Plaza Hotel to consult on finance issues and affirmed their agreement by signing the Plaza Accord. It 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.

Ownership changes and renovations

Karl Bitter's Abundance, or Pomona in the Pulitzer Fountain

Conrad Hilton bought the Plaza Hotel for $7.4 million in 1943 (equivalent of $101 million today) and spent $6 million (equivalent of $82.2 million today) refurbishing it. The Childs Company, a national restaurant chain which partnered in the development of the neighboring Savoy-Plaza Hotel,[10] (now the site of the General Motors Building), purchased the Plaza Hotel in 1955 for $6.2 million in stock (equivalent of $56 million today).[11] Childs, later named Sonesta International Hotels,[12] sold the Plaza to Western International Hotels (later Westin Hotels) in 1975 for $25 million (equivalent of $112 million today).[13]

Donald Trump bought the Plaza Hotel for $407.5 million in 1988 (equivalent of $816 million today). Trump commented on his purchase in a full-page open letter 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 installed his wife, Ivana Trump as the hotel's president.[14] After $50 million in renovations, the hotel was earning a healthy operating income, but not enough to make the payments on its heavy debt load.[15] Trump made plans to pay off the hotel's debt by selling off many of its units as condominiums.[16] A deal was instead reached for the Plaza's creditors, a group of banks led by Citibank, to take a 49 percent stake in the hotel in exchange for forgiveness of $250 million in debt and an interest rate reduction.[17] The agreement was submitted as a prepackaged bankruptcy in November 1992.[18]

In 1995, CDL Hotels International and Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal purchased a controlling stake in the Plaza in a deal that valued it at $325 million (equivalent of $506 million today).[19]

The hotel was sold in 2004 for $675 million (equivalent of $847 million today) to Israeli-owned Manhattan-based developer, El Ad Properties.[20] 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 comply with landmark regulations.[21] El Ad temporarily closed the Plaza Hotel on April 30, 2005, for extensive renovations.[22] Beginning May 2005, the Plaza Hotel's contents were available to the public via a liquidation sale. The hotel reopened on March 1, 2008,[23] offering 282 hotel rooms and 152 private condo hotel units; it is managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. Diamond retailer Lev Leviev put in the first bid for a Plaza apartment at $10 million. Most of the condominium units are usually empty, used as pieds-à-terre by their wealthy owners.[24]

Augustus Saint-Gaudens' General Sherman monument

In November 2008 the Plaza Hotel unveiled its retail collection, an underground mall featuring luxury brands such as Vertu and Demel Bakery (closed as of March 2010), an Austrian-owned business. In 2010 the Plaza Food Hall opened in the underground mall, anchored by The Todd English Food Hall in collaboration with Chef Todd English.[25]

On July 31, 2012, India's business group Sahara India Pariwar agreed to buy a 75 percent controlling stake for $570 million from El Ad Properties.[26] The stake includes 100 of the Plaza's 150 hotel-condominium units and a retail portion that includes The Oak Room bar.[27]

In August 2014, Sahara's Subrata Roy announced he was seeking a buyer for his company's majority stake in the Plaza, along with similar stakes in the Dream Hotel in New York and the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. A $4 billion price tag was placed on the Plaza stake. Speculation that Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei would be the buyer was quashed by the sultan. The hotel continues to be owned by Sahara India Pariwar.[27]

Literature

  • It was the setting for Kay Thompson's series of Eloise children's books published in the 1950s, about a young girl who lived at the hotel.
  • The novel Anonymous Rex has the main character, Vincent Rubio, checking into the hotel at great expense after threatening the front desk clerk.
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby features the characters Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker having a conversation in the tea garden at the Plaza Hotel. Another scene in the novel features a confrontation between title character Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan in a suite at the Plaza Hotel.
  • It was one of the main settings in the series The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot; it was where Mia's grandmother (or grand-mère) stayed.
  • It was a base camp used by the demigods in The Last Olympian in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series (2009); the Pomona statue appears.

Films

Television

References

Notes

  1. ↑ National Park Service (2006-03-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 "Plaza Hotel". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. September 18, 2007.
  3. ↑ "The Plaza". Historic Hotels of America. Retrieved 2015-11-15.
  4. ↑ Archived March 22, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ History page on the Plaza's website
  6. 1 2 Morehouse, Ward. Inside the Plaza: an Intimate Portrait of the Ultimate Hotel. New York: Applause, 2001
  7. ↑ "Alphonse Salamone, 73, Manager Of Plaza and the Waldorf-Astoria". The New York Times. 20 March 1993. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  8. ↑ ""Plaza Hotel", undated, by Carolyn Pitts" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination. National Park Service. n.d.
  9. ↑ Mike Capuzzo (December 21, 1993). "Marla finally becomes Mrs. Trump". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  10. ↑ McKim, Mead, and White, architects; demolished in 1964.
  11. ↑ "Childs Approves Plaza Purchase", The New York Times, November 18, 1955
  12. ↑ "Sonesta International Hotels Corp - Company Timeline". During Sonesta's ownership, the board of directors included Joe Appelbaum the investor of Daisy and Bugles corn chips and past President of Doxsee Foods Corp in Baltimore. Retrieved April 25, 2009.
  13. ↑ http://ishc.com/wp-content/uploads/ThePlaza.pdf
  14. ↑ Marion M. White (September 26, 1988). "Ivana Trump: Hard work, discipline and self-reliance". Tampa Bay Times – via NewsBank.
  15. ↑ Floyd Norris (June 5, 1990). "A haze of debt clouds the Plaza Hotel's gleam". New York Times. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  16. ↑ Richard D. Hylton (April 9, 1991). "Trump expected to sell rooms in Plaza Hotel". Los Angeles Daily News – via NewsBank.
  17. ↑ "Trump yields 49% of Plaza Hotel in N.Y.". The Star-Ledger. Newark, NJ. March 19, 1992 – via NewsBank.
  18. ↑ "Trump's Plaza Hotel bankruptcy plan approved". New York Times. December 12, 1992. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  19. ↑ "Trump Is Selling Plaza Hotel To Saudi and Asian Investors", The New York Times, 1995 12 April
  20. ↑ "Eloise Gets a New Landlord: Plaza Sells for $675 Million", The New York Times, 2004 14 Aug
  21. ↑ Knudson, Brooke. "Restoring a New York icon: Tishman Construction Corporation puts its constructions management skills to the test on The Plaza Hotel renovation and conversion in New York City and came out a winner", Construction Today 2008 March: 43.
  22. ↑ Danto, Ginger. "Suite Deal for the Plaza", Brandweek 2005 April 25: 30.
  23. ↑ Baltic, Contributing Editor Scott. "New York's Plaza Hotel Reopens After $400M Renovation", Commercial Property News 2008 March 3: NA.
  24. ↑ Elizabeth A. Harris (February 11, 2013). "Why Buy a Condo You Seldom Use? Because You Can". New York Times. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
  25. ↑ Plaza Food Hall Is Growing
  26. ↑ "Sahara checks into iconic New York hotel". Hindustan Times. Retrieved July 28, 2014.
  27. 1 2 Bagli, Charles V. (August 22, 2014). "Legal Woes of Owners Help Put the Plaza Back in Play". The New York Times. Retrieved August 23, 2014.

Bibliography

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