Talk:Plaza Hotel

Untitled
Does anyone want to tackle making the first paragraph of this article readable? The sentences are way too long and packed with too much information, imo. Moncrief 01:34, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for making this more readable. It's still a bit bizzare that nearly all of the first paragraph is about the stuff around the Plaza rather than the Plaza itself, but I'm not prepared to fix it now.  Moncrief 04:34, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * The Plaza Hotel and the Plaza it is named for certainly need to be combined in one article somewhere, maybe here with a subsection "Site", because the Plaza Hotel is not in fact on Fifth Avenue, for starters. A better description would emphasize the (former) unity of the site, jarred by the GM Building sunk in its private dry moat (by Edward Durrell Stone, 1968) on the site of the former Savoy Plaza Hotel. --Wetman 05:02, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

There should be a Category New York City Hotels.

I would not recommend this hotel to any one.its filty.Rooms are old and dated and very small .wallpaper hanging off of the walls.Carpets are very shabby'.Rooms cleaned every second day.I soppose it was a good hotel in the 50,s.best things about it is its near everything.PS.if you need the toilet go before you check out.after you have checked out and you need the toilet you have to go down stairs the doors is locked so you have to go back to reception .trying to get a key for the toilrt is trying get blood from a stone.AVOID it at all costs.good luck

fountain
Is the whole description of the fountain really necessary? It seems irrelevant. 66.167.91.66 20:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

excise section on Grand Army Plaza - belongs as its own article
the link "grand army plaza" appearing within the paragraph sends one to the aricle on Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn.

the article on the plaza hotel is rather skimpy. would expect much more detail including the many acts that played the Persian Room (perhaps meriting an article of its own?).

Other comments/queries - Who were original owners? What about mention of some early guests using hotel as permanent home (F. Scott Fitzgerald? or a Vanderbilt? can't remember) No mention of the murals in the Oak Bar. No mention of the landmark status (i believe or did that attempt fail to pass?) of certain interiors. this in addition to exterior landmarking by NYC Landmarks Commission. No mention that it once (during late 80s? into early 90s?) had a "screening room"-like cinema in basement with a 59th-street entrance. No mention of the clam bar restaurant that was on 58th street side. Article mentions women were not allowed in the Oak Bar during the 1950s. only that decade? think not. No mention of the live musicians (piano and strings) performing in the Palm Court. No mention of long-time restaurant - Trader Vics - in basement off 59th street. --98.116.115.220 (talk) 19:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Style
"Architectural style: Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals". There is NO such style. Nomad (talk) 09:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Other people outside Wikipedia seem to think that it is. But "Ampire and Art Nuveau", which is what you attempted to change the field to, certainly isn't. Is there a better descriptor you could suggest which is the unambiguous name of a recognized architectural style? —Psychonaut (talk) 11:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * So now you're going to run around Wikipedia deleting my changes in ALL aricles I've edited? Well, okay, let's play that game and see who gets tired first. Google search for a word combinaiton is not proof. Reversing your edit. Nomad (talk) 13:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I discovered your edits to this article and to Lugansk by patrolling Special:RecentChanges today, and not by targetting you specifically. —Psychonaut (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Link
I have Web of Trust and the external link in the introduction (Historic Hotels of America) has Child Safety rated as Unsatisfactory (orange; medium level). Is this a problem?  George 82  11  18:44, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Article title
A reader note that the name of the hotel is not the Plaza Hotel but The Plaza.
 * The official website refers to "The Plaza"
 * Historic Hotels of America calls it "The Plaza"
 * Our own article refers to "The Plaza" except in the lead.
 * While some sites, such as National Historic Landmarks use "Plaza Hotel" that may be just due to making the obvious error.

I was tempted to be Bold and move it, but I thought I'd have a discussion, in case I'm missing something major.-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  20:44, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Historical photos
• Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 08:44, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is an early color photo of the hotel in the Albert Kahn (banker) "Archives of the Planet" photo collection in 1908. A dedicated person might want to contact the collection for a copy.
 * http://citynoise.org/article/10598 (here is the photo)
 * http://paintedback.blogspot.com/2013/10/plaza-hotel-new-york-circa-1910.html

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Plaza Hotel. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130322204717/http://www.historichotels.org/hotels-resorts/the-plaza-new-york/ to http://www.historichotels.org/hotels-resorts/the-plaza-new-york/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 04:59, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Trump divorce from Ivana
Why do you think it is relevant to mention that Trump's sale of the Plaza happened after his divorce from Ivana? Including it here seems to imply that there is some causative connection between the sale and the divorce, when I see no reason to believe there was (certainly nothing in the cited source). Toohool (talk) 05:20, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The connection is there, but it's more tenuous than I thought. Trump was in deep debt at the time of his divorce, and tried to borrow money from various banks to help pay Ivana what was due to her, but the banks refused.  A couple of years later he sells the Plaza, with the money not going to Trump, but to the banks that hold the debt. You can make something out of that, but until I find a more direct statement of that connection, I'm going to remove it, even though I still believe that the divorce put Trump into the position where he needed to sell assets, as the banks were no longer lending to him.  I'll keep checking, and if I find something, I'll re-add it, but out it goes for now. BMK (talk) 05:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Trader Vic's
The Plaza was the former site of Trader Vic's in New York. The favourite New York Bar of Salvador Dali and Richard Nixon. Surely that deserves a mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.14.115.113 (talk) 05:10, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, in the basement, 1965-1993. It had been in the Savoy-Plaza before that, 1958-1964.

When Trump closed it in 1993, there was some speculation he had done so because the bar was attracting a certain type.

Some research, and sourcing, and the article can be expanded. 213.205.240.185 (talk) 15:32, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The article is already fairly large. I have added a sentence about this - this is already in the Trader Vic's page as well, but it only operated till 1989. Epicgenius (talk) 14:29, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Article currently says:

“A second phase of renovations was announced the same year, which entailed enlarging some public rooms and replacing the ground-floor barber shop with a Trader Vic's bar.”

“Trump also decided to shut down the Trader Vic's in the basement in 1989, saying it had become "tacky".”

Ok, where was it? Or did it move from the former barber shop to the basement? 216.198.80.202 (talk) 16:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Unsourced pop culture section removed
This section didn't have a single source when I removed it. epicgenius (talk) 02:53, 19 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I believe that, rather than removing this entire "unsourced pop culture section" you could simply find proper citations for most of these. Surely you could have at least verified and cited The Eloise books and The Great Gatsby if nothing else. --160.3.224.250 (talk) 01:30, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: I have rewritten and expanded this article, and in so doing I was able to find more reliable sources for some of the below entries. However, not all of these entries could be sourced. Perhaps the below can go into a Plaza Hotel in popular culture article. Epicgenius (talk) 06:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

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

 * Eloise (1956) starring Evelyn Rudie as Eloise, the child who lived "on the top floor", with cameo appearances by Conrad Hilton and Eloise author Kay Thompson.
 * North by Northwest (1959)
 * Barefoot in the Park (1967)
 * Funny Girl (1968)
 * Plaza Suite (1971)
 * The Way We Were (1973)
 * Love at First Bite (1979)
 * Arthur (1981)
 * They All Laughed (1981)
 * The Cotton Club (1984)
 * Brewster's Millions (1985)
 * "Crocodile" Dundee (1986)
 * Big Business (1988)
 * Crocodile Dundee II (1988)
 * King of New York (1990)
 * In Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), much of the film takes place in and around the hotel, and then-owner Donald Trump makes a cameo appearance, with a line directing Macaulay Culkin to the lobby ("Down the hall and to the left")
 * Scent of a Woman (1992)
 * Flodders in America (1992)
 * Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
 * It Could Happen to You (1994)
 * The Associate (1996)
 * Antz (1998)
 * Almost Famous (2000)
 * Hollywood Ending  (2002), a Woody Allen film.
 * Eloise at Christmastime (2003), a live action film adapted from the eponymous 1958 children's book written by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight
 * Eloise at the Plaza (2003), a live action film based on the Eloise series of children's books by Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight
 * The Plaza Hotel is seen in the intro of the film Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York (2006)
 * A parody of the hotel appears in the Grand Theft Auto IV video game (2008)
 * In Bride Wars (2009) with Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway's character was shot in the Grand Ballroom, the Terrace Room, and in corridors and the Palm Court. The film also shows the lobby and exterior.
 * The Smurfs (2011), the Plaza Hotel makes a brief appearance prior to the chase scene at FAO Schwarz.
 * The Great Gatsby (2013), Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy and Tom Buchanan talk in a suite at the hotel
 * American Hustle (2013)
 * The Post (2017)
 * Christmas at The Plaza (2019)

Television

 * The American Dad! episode "Fart-Break Hotel" featured the hotel as a main setting.
 * In the Family Guy episode "A Picture is Worth 1,000 Bucks", the Griffin family stays in this hotel.
 * Friends
 * The Lupin the Third Part II episode "Christmas at Tiffany's" features the gang spending Christmas in New York City and staying at the hotel.
 * Seinfeld
 * The Sopranos:
 * The pilot and "Eloise" episodes refer to Carmela and Meadow Soprano's tradition of lunching under Eloise's portrait at the Plaza Hotel on Meadow's birthday.
 * Several episodes, including "The Test Dream" (season 5, episode 11), feature scenes occurring in a suite at the Plaza Hotel.
 * Ugly Betty character Wilhelmina Slater owns an apartment facing Central Park at the Plaza Hotel.
 * What I Like About You