Next week will see the publication of The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel (Twelve) by Julie Satow, a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Daily Beast. In it, Satow chronicles the history of New York’s storied hotel from its opening through the Jazz Age to the go-go 1980s and its stature today as part of the city’s billionaire row. Satow gives Show Daily readers a sneak preview of some of the tasty tidbits in the book. Here’s what she told us.
Four Key Moments at the Plaza Hotel
The Opening of a Landmark: The Plaza opened on October 1, 1907, to great fanfare, with Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, one of the country’s richest men, its inaugural guest. Like many who checked in at the gleaming white edifice that dominated the corner opposite Central Park, Vanderbilt lived full-time at the Plaza, ushering in a new fad among the wealthy set to eschew their private mansions and embrace apartment living.
The Jazz Age: The 1920s brought Prohibition, speakeasies, and surreptitious sips from hip flasks. At the Plaza, the Oak Bar served lemonade, and with a dwindling number of patrons was eventually converted into an office for the brokerage firm E.F. Hutton. Downstairs at the Plaza’s Grill Room, however, young patrons still gathered for popular tea dances. One frequent visitor was F. Scott Fitzgerald, the dashing writer famous for his love of Zelda and his haunting prose. For Fitzgerald, the Plaza was a sort of shorthand, a symbol he used in several of his works to connote extravagance, wealth, and frivolity.
From Eloise to the Beatles: In 1955, a mischievous six-year-old made her literary debut and instantly became the Plaza’s most famous resident. The hotel was flooded with diminutive devotees desperate to glimpse the fictional heroine, and staff grew accustomed to young people loitering in the lobby and clogging the phone lines. Operators fielding requests for Eloise would apologize to the callers, explaining that she was otherwise engaged “swonking” pigeons on the roof. A decade later, the Plaza’s young fan base grew even larger when four mop-haired musicians called the Beatles arrived, bringing in their wake hysterical teenyboppers who mobbed the hotel and overwhelmed a consternated staff.
Party of the Century: In 1966, Truman Capote, basking in the success of his true crime book In Cold Blood, wanted to celebrate by throwing himself a fete. He picked the Plaza, which he called “the only really beautiful ballroom left in the United States.” Capote’s 540 invitees ranged from socialites and movie stars, including Babe Paley and Frank Sinatra, to the doorman at his apartment building and his boyfriend’s family. The party lasted until the early hours, further securing the Plaza’s reputation as the locale for glamour and celebrity.
Today, 1:30–2:30 p.m. Julie Satow will sign The Plaza at Table 9.
