PODCAST REWIND The Plaza Hotel has become one of the most recognizable landmarks in New York City, a romantic throwback to the last days of the Gilded Age. It epitomized the changes that were arriving on Fifth Avenue, steering away from the private mansions of the moneyed class and towards a certain kind of communal living that was increasingly being seen as acceptable and even preferable.
We take a look at the Plaza’s unusual history, from its days as an upper class “transient hotel” to a party place for celebrities.
Starring: John ‘Bet-a-Million’ Gates, Eloise, Truman Capote and of course the unflappable Mrs. Patrick Campbell.
NOTE: This show was originally recorded in November 2008. The Plaza is currently owned by Sahara India Pariwar.
The Plaza Hotel in 1912. Its romantic exterior and sumptuous rooms eased New York’s wealthiest class into the habit of hotel living. (Cleaned-up picture courtesy Shorpy)
By the 1930s, the Fifth Avenue mansions below 59th Street were gone, and the Plaza was joined by other luxury hotels. (Picture courtesy Museum of the City of New York)
The first Plaza Hotel was deemed out of fashion and indeed looks quite plain in comparison to the building which would replace it.
We’re so used to the Plaza being surrounded by department stores and office buildings. But in fact its first neighbors were mansions as illustrated in this photograph from 1923 (Courtesy the Museum of the City of New York)
Looking up Fifth Avenue, taken sometime after 1907. The Plaza peaks over the mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
This picture was taken in 1940. Except for the shoe-shine boy and the automobile, it could have been taken yesterday. (Photograph by Roy Perry, courtesy the Museum of the City of New York)
Truman Capote and Katherine Graham at the Black and White Ball, 1966
Fans await the Beatles outside the Plaza Hotel 1964 (Courtesy New York Daily News)
Trader Vic’s in the basement of the Plaza (courtesy the blog TikiRoom)
The ballroom of the Plaza, 1907 (Courtesy Museum of the City of New York)
