The Plaza

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The Plaza Hotel

The Plaza is a world-famous New York luxury hotel. Opened on October 1st, 1907, the hotel is a landmark of the city and is also famous for its French Renaissance style facade and interior, as well as for its illustrious guests.

history

The Plaza Hotel represents a piece of contemporary history of the city: the growing importance of New York as a cosmopolitan city went hand in hand with an increased importance for business traffic - tourism did not play such a major role back then. And if business partners wanted to stay in New York, then a suitable hotel had to be available for the wealthy. Two names played a role here: The Waldorf-Astoria and The Plaza .

The building was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh . The plaza stood on the site of the current hotel as early as 1890 , but was demolished in 1905 to make room for the current building. The new building cost $ 12.5 million and was declared the best hotel in the world at the time. The hotel with its formerly 805 rooms, today 348 rooms and 150 condominiums on 19 floors, is located in Manhattan at the intersection between Fifth Avenue and East 59th, on the Grand Army Plaza , which gave the hotel its name, on the Upper East Side . The exposed location directly on the southeast corner of Central Park made the hotel - like the former Hotel St. Moritz , today The Ritz New York - so exclusive. The Broadway at the southwest corner of Central Park is 800 meters away.

In November 1978, the plaza was registered as a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places . In June 1986 it was awarded the status of a National Historic Landmark as an “outstanding example of American hotel architecture” . However, architecture critics have not characterized the plaza positively as a “French Renaissance palace of gigantic proportions”.

Regular guests included members of the Vanderbilt , Gould and Harriman families , as well as Ernest Hemingway . It is also known for its bars and restaurants open to the public, in particular the exclusive Oak Bar . In The Plaza 1995, the first and by 1998 three other events of the famous found Victoria's Secret Fashion Show held.

In autumn 2004 the hotel was auctioned. The Israeli real estate fund Elad Properties has spent $ 675 million, and another 350 million should be invested in the renovation. In 2005 the entire hotel was to be converted into an apartment building . Only after loud protests from the New York population was this plan changed. 'Only' the 450 rooms with views of Central Park and 5th Avenue were converted into 150 condominiums. The remaining 348 of the total of 805 hotel rooms with the less attractive view of 58th Street remained what they were. It was then reopened in March 2008.

The house belongs to the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts . According to the location and history of the house, the prices of the apartments are in the upper ranges.

Others

Alfred Hitchcock shot parts of his film The Invisible Third here . The comedy Kevin - Alone in New York is partly set in the Plaza - the then owner of the hotel, Donald Trump (he bought it in 1988), also made a cameo as a hotel guest. Allegedly, his participation was a condition for the filming permission. In 1958 the record label Columbia Records celebrated a party here with performances by jazz stars Duke Ellington , Billie Holiday , Bill Evans , John Coltrane and Miles Davis ; the recordings appeared in 1973 ( Jazz at the Plaza, Vol. 1 ).

In September 1985, representatives of the G5 states (USA, Japan, the Federal Republic of Germany, France and Great Britain) agreed in the Plaza in the so-called Plaza Agreement to work towards a devaluation of the US dollar against the yen and the German mark.

literature

Web links

Commons : The Plaza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Plaza Hotel on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed January 31, 2020.
  2. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: New York. National Park Service , accessed January 31, 2020.
  3. ↑ Canadian broadcaster cut Trump from "Kevin Alone in New York" , in: DerStandard.de; accessed on June 2, 2020.

Coordinates: 40 ° 45 ′ 52.5 "  N , 73 ° 58 ′ 28.3"  W.