The Plaza New York Review: Rooms, Tea, and Real Costs

New York has no shortage of grand hotels. Only one of them gets called the castle by cab drivers. The Plaza stands at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, opened in 1907, and the green mansard roof was deliberately colored to match the leaves in Central Park. Today the building is half hotel and half private residence: 282 guest rooms, 181 condominiums.

This guide walks one place per page, from the stone steps on Fifth Avenue to the stained glass laylight over the Palm Court. Most pages end with a short section on how to plan it, but the real value of this building is not in a to-do list. It is in having a reason to stand in the corridor for five more minutes. Thirteen pages, about seventeen minutes.

The last page has a checkable list of twelve things. Most of them are about seeing or touching something that has been in this building for more than a century. Items 3, 7, and 11 cost nothing and most guests never do them. Check them off slowly. None of this is a race.

中文版：紐約 The Plaza，住進 1907 年的城堡 →

01 · The basics

One building, three entrances, two identities

The Plaza has three street entrances and each belongs to a different set of people. The Fifth Avenue side is the hotel door. The Central Park South side has been the private residential entrance since 2008. One West 58th Street leads down to the shops. Knowing this saves you a wrong turn in your first minute, and it explains most of what this building feels like.

Position	An independent landmark hotel operated by Fairmont, part of the Accor group. A National Historic Landmark since 1986, with the exterior designated a New York City landmark in 1969 and much of the ground floor interior in 2005
Opened	October 1, 1907. An earlier Plaza Hotel stood on the same lot from 1890 and was demolished in 1905
Architecture	French Renaissance chateau style by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. Eighteen stories, about 252 feet (77 m). Warren and Wetmore added the 58th Street annex between 1919 and 1921
Size	282 rooms and suites, including 102 suites, plus 181 private condominiums. At its peak the hotel had more than 800 rooms
Owner	Katara Hospitality, the Qatari state hotel company, which took full ownership in 2018. Fairmont has managed the hotel since 2005
Address	768 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019. Residences enter at One Central Park South. The shops enter at 1 West 58th Street
Phone	+1 212 759 3000, which the hotel writes as 212-PLZ-3000, or +1 888 850 0909
Check-in / out	Check-in 3 p.m., check-out 12 noon. Early check-in cannot be guaranteed, and the hotel asks that you share your arrival time in advance
Getting there	An entrance to the Fifth Avenue–59th Street subway station (N, R, W) sits in the base of the hotel, about one minute on foot. The 57th Street station is four minutes. JFK is about 13 miles (21 km), LaGuardia about 5.3 miles (8.5 km)
Parking	Valet parking is $110 per night at an off-site garage, with no in-and-out privileges. Oversized vehicles pay a $15 surcharge. EV charging is available

The hotel door faces the Pulitzer Fountain. That side is formally Grand Army Plaza, and the plaza is where the hotel got its name. In 1907 this spot was an open-air terrace called the Champagne Porch. It was replaced in 1921 by the entrance you use now, with six Tuscan columns holding up a balcony. Climb the steps, go through the revolving door, and you are in the Fifth Avenue lobby.

Note the steps. There are several at the Fifth Avenue entrance, and guests with strollers or a lot of luggage report that doormen do not always come over unprompted. Accessibility details are on page 9.

How to plan it

ArrivingTell the driver Fifth Avenue entrance. Central Park South is the residential door and you will have to walk around.
In the cityThere is no reason to rent a car for this hotel. Valet is $110 a night with no in-and-out, and this part of Manhattan is far better on foot and by subway.
After bookingSend a note with your arrival time and your preferred floor and orientation. Page 3 explains why that second part matters.

02 · Lobbies and public rooms

One corridor holds a hundred years together

Hardenbergh put a main corridor into the 1907 plan, connecting the lobbies on 58th Street, Grand Army Plaza, and Central Park South, and wrapping around the Palm Court at the center of the floor. That corridor is still there, and it is the best thing in this building that costs nothing.

Fifth Avenue lobby	Created in the 1921 expansion, in the space of the former Plaza Restaurant, and it became the new main lobby. U-shaped mezzanine, mosaic floor, crystal chandelier. Reception and the guest elevators are here
Central Park South foyer	The original 1907 main lobby. French marble walls, gilded bronze column capitals, plaster coffered ceiling. Since 2008 it serves the condominium residents
Main corridor	Mosaic floors, plaster coffered ceilings, marble columns with bronze capitals. It wraps the south, east, and north sides of the Palm Court
Oak Bar	Tudor Revival. Three Everett Shinn murals were installed in the 1945 renovation showing this block as it looked in 1907. Currently used for private events rather than walk-in service
Oak Room	The 1907 men's bar, German Renaissance style, oak walls, frescoes of Bavarian castles, a twenty-foot ceiling and a grape-laden chandelier. It closed as a restaurant in 2011 and is now a private event space
Grand Ballroom	Rebuilt in 1929 to a neoclassical design by Schultze and Weaver, in white, cream, and gold. Truman Capote held the Black and White Ball here in 1966
Terrace Room	Warren and Wetmore, 1921. Three interior terraces stepping up from east to west, with decorative painting by John B. Smeraldi. An event space today

Most of these rooms are closed to walk-in visitors. The Oak Room, Oak Bar, Edwardian Room, Terrace Room, and Grand Ballroom are all private event spaces now, and the doors are shut when nothing is booked. What you can wander freely is the main corridor and the two lobbies. That sounds like bad news until you look up: when this building was fitted out in 1907 it ordered 1,650 crystal chandeliers and placed what was then the largest single order for gold-rimmed cutlery ever made.

Take your time Look down at the floor. When Home Alone 2 filmed here in 1992, one scene required the lead to slide across the lobby, so the crew pulled up the carpet. Underneath was old tilework carrying the Plaza crest, hidden for decades. After the shoot, management decided not to put the carpet back. The floor you are standing on is visible because of a Christmas movie.

03 · Guest rooms

The rooms are large, but the park view is not on your side

Here is the thing worth knowing before you book. After the 2005 to 2008 conversion, most of the north side facing Central Park and the east side facing Fifth Avenue became private condominiums. The 282 hotel rooms are concentrated on the south side of the building. That is why the hotel describes its entry-level rooms as courtyard or city view rather than park view. This is not marketing language. It is how the deed was cut.

Room count	282, of which 102 are suites
Floor split	The fourth through tenth stories, labeled floors 3 to 9, hold 130 rooms that are hotel rooms year round. The eleventh through twenty-first stories, labeled floors 10 to 20, hold 152 condo-hotel units whose owners may use them up to four months a year and which are sold as hotel rooms the rest of the time
Floor numbering	European style. The story above the ground floor is called floor 1, so the elevator number is one lower than you expect
Entry size	The Plaza King starts around 475 sq ft (about 44 m²), which is generous by New York standards
Deluxe tier	Deluxe King and Deluxe Two Queens are each about 550 sq ft (about 51 m²). The Deluxe Two Queens looks onto 58th Street. Third-party booking pages list this category on floors 5 to 19
Grand Luxe	Open-plan layout with a sitting area and a butler's pantry
Terrace Room King	Comes with a private terrace overlooking the interior courtyard garden
Suites	Junior Suite around 700 sq ft (65 m²). The Edwardian Suite sits on floors 11 to 19 at roughly twice the size of a guest room. Legacy Suites such as the Pulitzer Fifth Avenue Suite and the Carnegie Partial Park View Suite run about 1,000 sq ft (93 m²). The twentieth-floor Penthouse is about 1,500 sq ft (139 m²) and the Grand Penthouse about 2,100 sq ft (195 m²)
In the room	Louis XV style furnishings, crystal chandeliers, gilded headboards, an iPad for room controls and guest services, Chromecast streaming, minibar, and PressReader for newspapers and magazines. A butler is stationed on each floor, with full butler service offered to suite guests on request
Service	Twice-daily housekeeping including turndown. In-room dining runs 24 hours

Human factorsPutting the condominiums on the north and east sides, where the views are, was the central decision of the 2005 conversion. The developer originally wanted to remove far more hotel rooms, and the hotel unions and preservationists negotiated the count back up to the 282 that exist today. So the fact that this hotel has big rooms with limited views is the result of a settlement, not an oversight. And because floors 10 and above are owner-occupied part of the year, whether an upgrade lands depends heavily on how many of those units are in the pool that week. That explains why one guest reports a corner room on the nineteenth floor and another stays low for three nights running.

If you want the park, the path is clear enough. The Carnegie Partial Park View Suite is sold as a partial park view, and full Central Park views belong to the Grand Penthouse and some top-floor categories. If you would rather not chase that, the Terrace Room King is a different kind of answer: it gives you a private terrace over the courtyard garden, which is a rare thing to own for a night in Midtown.

How to plan it

BookingDecide first whether you want space or a view. For space, Deluxe is plenty. For the park, go straight to the Carnegie or the top floors.
AfterWrite a note stating your preferred floor and orientation. In writing beats asking at the desk.
On arrivalLook up at the ceiling height and the chandelier, then down at the bathroom mosaic. Neither photographs well and both are the point.

04 · Bathrooms

A tub and a separate shower, in every single room

Older New York hotels are full of rooms where the tub was sacrificed for a shower, and that missing tub is one of the most common disappointments in reviews. The Plaza went the other way. From the entry-level Plaza King upward, every guest room has a bathtub and a separate walk-in shower. This is the most solid and least discussed advantage the building has.

Layout	Bathtub and separate shower in all categories. Suites add a guest powder room
Floors	Inlaid earth stone mosaics, in patterns designed exclusively for The Plaza
Vanities	Hand-crafted solid white marble. Suites have double vanities
Fittings	Sherle Wagner 24-carat gold-plated fixtures
Accessible rooms	Several, with doors wide enough for wheelchair access and grab bars. Two of them have a roll-in shower and no tub. See page 9
On request	Wheelchairs, raised toilet seats, clamp-on tub bars, night lights, non-slip mats
Also	Robes, slippers, hair dryer, safe. Same-day dry cleaning and laundry seven days a week, plus overnight shoeshine

The hotel does not publish a single fixed bath amenity brand, and what is stocked shifts over time, so it is not worth deciding anything on that basis. One small item does come up repeatedly in guest reports: bath salts are provided in the room. Given that the tub is standard equipment here, that is a practical touch rather than a decorative one.

A small discoveryWhen this building opened in 1907 it had 500 bathrooms, an absurd number for the New York of that year. The same engineering record notes that water passed through ten filters before reaching the guest rooms, and water for the kitchens and drinking fountains was filtered again. More than a century later, the refusal to compromise on bathrooms has evidently been kept as a house tradition.

05 · Dining

The Palm Court: three seatings under a glass ceiling

The Palm Court sits at the dead center of the ground floor. It began as the 1907 tea room, modeled on the Palm Court at the Carlton Hotel in London. The stained glass laylight overhead was removed in the 1940s to make room for air conditioning equipment and restored during the 2000s renovation. This is the most famous afternoon tea in New York, and the one that needs the most planning.

Location	Center of the ground floor, with the main corridor wrapping three sides of it
Afternoon Tea	11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on timed seatings. First seating 11:00, 11:15, 11:30. Second seating 1:15, 1:30, 1:45. Third seating 3:30, 3:45, 4:00
Evening	Lite fare and cocktails 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., then bar service only until 11:30 p.m.
Menus	Two standard options, the Manhattan Tea and the Signature Tea, the latter built on lobster, caviar, and foie gras and rotating by season. There is also the Grand Imperial Tea for two, with caviar and premium Champagne, and the children's Eloise Tea for guests twelve and under
Prices	The entry Manhattan Tea starts around $99 per person. The Signature Tea is a seasonal upgrade whose price moves with the calendar, with recent figures between roughly $120 and $155 per person (the holiday version has run around $155). The Grand Imperial Tea is about $595 to $599 for two, and the children's Eloise Tea about $80 to $118. Prices are adjusted most years and the seasonal tea changes each run, so confirm against the current menu when you book
Drinks	Palais des Thes teas from France, roughly twenty-five single-origin and blended options. Champagne is extra. Coffee is available instead
Dietary	Gluten free, vegan, and vegetarian menus on request, with at least 72 hours notice
Dress	The hotel publishes a Style Guide and states that guests who are not sufficiently well presented may be refused entry
Cancellation	Free up to three days ahead. Cancellations inside 72 hours, and no-shows, are charged $75 per person
Reservations	OpenTable, +1 212 546 5300, or palmcourt@fairmont.com

The room deserves a look on its own terms

The 2014 renovation, led by architect Thierry Despont with chef Geoffrey Zakarian, placed an oval marble and brass bar in the middle of the room, ringed by four palm trees. That was the first bar this room had held in more than a century of service. Against the west wall stand four caryatids carved by Pottier and Stymus, representing the seasons. They predate the bar by a hundred and seven years.

A few weeks after the 1907 opening, the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell lit a cigarette in this room, and the resulting scandal did more for the hotel's fame than any advertisement. By 1909 the Palm Court was routinely exceeding its 350-person capacity. Some rooms grow into their character. This one arrived with it.

How to plan it

BookingTake the first seating. The 11 a.m. round gets the first pastries of the day and the quietest room.
DecemberThe holiday season books out. Aim one to two months ahead, and note that in that period non-resident visitors need a reservation to enter the lobby at all.
With kidsOrder the Eloise Tea. The peanut butter sandwiches and the cotton candy are for them, not for you.
After 4 p.m.Tea service ends and the room turns into a cocktail lounge. If you want a quiet pot of tea, skip the last seating.

06 · Dining

The Champagne Bar: one room, 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The Champagne Bar sits beside the Fifth Avenue lobby and foyer, looking out at Fifth Avenue and the Pulitzer Fountain. Its hours run across the whole day: breakfast in the morning, Champagne and caviar at night. For a guest, the practical fact is that this is where breakfast happens, and it opens at half past six.

Location	Ground floor, adjoining the Fifth Avenue lobby and foyer, overlooking Fifth Avenue and the Pulitzer Fountain
Hours	Daily 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Lite fare until 10 p.m., cocktails until 11 p.m.
Breakfast	A la carte. Freshly baked pastries, light gourmet plates, specialty coffee. The Palm Court also serves breakfast, and in-room dining is a third option
Evening	Champagne, wine, caviar, and small plates
Children	There is a dedicated Eloise breakfast and all-day menu
Reservations	Recommended but not required. OpenTable or +1 212 546 5304
In-room dining	24 hours. The item guests keep naming is the ice cream sundae

It was once the ten most expensive tables in the building

When the hotel opened in 1907, this spot was an open-air terrace called the Champagne Porch, facing Grand Army Plaza, with only ten tables. A meal there ran between $50 and $500. Regulars included Diamond Jim Brady and the Prince of Wales. After Prohibition began, managing director Fred Sterry removed the porch entirely in 1921 and built the current entrance in its place. When the room was rebuilt indoors in 2014, the name came back with it.

Take your time Come down at seven in the morning. Fifth Avenue has not woken up yet, the fountain is louder than the traffic, and the carriage horses are lining up across the street. The real value of an included breakfast is not the money. It is that you wake up and have no decisions to make. The room is downstairs, the table is held, and all you do is sit down.

07 · Facilities

Fourth-floor spa, second-floor salon, basement shops

The facilities here sit at three different heights and they do not share one entrance. The fitness center is on the fourth floor, tucked inside the spa, and it is open around the clock. The salon is on the second floor and you reach it through the 58th Street shops entrance. The shops themselves are below ground, same door. Almost everyone gets this wrong once.

111SKIN SPA/CLINIC	Fourth floor. Arrived in autumn 2025, replacing the former Guerlain Spa. Founded by plastic surgeon Dr Yannis Alexandrides, with clinically framed facial and body treatments. Daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Phone +1 212 872 7200
Fitness center	Fourth floor, inside the spa, open 24 hours. Technogym cardio, strength systems, and free weights. Private training can be arranged through the Concierge
Fit Gear	If you left your kit at home, the hotel will send workout clothing, shoes, and a yoga mat with a stretch band to your room
Blandi Hair Salon	Second floor, entered through the 58th Street shops entrance. Monday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday to Friday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., closed Sunday. Phone +1 212 970 7001
The Plaza Boutique	Lobby level, daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. House-branded goods and Eloise merchandise
Shops entrance	1 West 58th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
What is missing	There is no swimming pool. The hotel's own FAQ makes a joke about Kevin McCallister's cannonball to explain that there never was one

What is left downstairs

The Plaza Food Hall, which opened in 2010, has closed. That level now holds a short row of shops: Assouline for art books and candles (daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.), Krigler perfumes (Monday to Friday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., weekends noon to 7 p.m.), Maurice Fine Jewelry (daily 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.), the Japanese children's label Miki House (Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday noon to 6 p.m.), and Qiviuk, a Canadian knitwear house working in qiviut and vicuna (daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.).

Krigler is worth a stop. Its fragrances are sold only in Krigler boutiques, so whatever you carry home is genuinely something nobody else has picked up at an airport.

Watch for stale informationA great deal of material online still refers to the Guerlain Spa, the Warren-Tricomi salon, the La Palestra gym, and the Todd English Food Hall. All four names are out of date, and some booking platforms and advisor systems have not caught up either. If you see those words, the page you are reading is at least two years behind.

08 · Costs and booking

The line below the room rate, and three ways to book

American hotel bills rarely stop at the room rate, and The Plaza is no exception. The Urban Experience Fee is $65 per night and valet parking is separate. Every figure is listed below, along with what each one returns, because those two things only mean something when you read them together.

Urban Experience Fee	$65 per night plus tax. Includes a $50 daily food and beverage credit valid at the Palm Court, the Champagne Bar, or in-room dining; a $50 spa credit usable with a treatment of 60 minutes or longer; and Chromecast streaming
Valet parking	$110 per night at an off-site garage, with no in-and-out privileges. $15 surcharge for oversized vehicles
Smoking	The hotel is entirely non-smoking, with a minimum $1,500 charge for violations
Tea cancellation	$75 per person inside 72 hours or for a no-show
Pets	No additional charge. See page 9
Rate range	Tripadvisor estimates a standard room at roughly $1,221 to $2,174 per night based on average rates. Third-party platforms show lower figures in low season and during promotions

What the $65 actually returns

The $50 food and beverage credit applies straight against breakfast or part of an afternoon tea. The spa credit is tied to a treatment, so it goes unused if you do not book one. In practice, if you were already planning to eat in the building once a day, most of the fee comes back onto your own bill. If you intend to eat every meal elsewhere, it stays a fixed cost. There is no universal answer here, only what your particular trip looks like.

The house car: one Maybach, ten blocks

The hotel keeps a house Maybach, free for guests to use within a ten-block radius. It runs Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., first come first served, and cannot be reserved in advance. It appears on no amenity list and in no rate description, and it has been there all along.

Three ways to book

Direct	The hotel site or Fairmont. An ALL Accor membership earns points and member rates
Virtuoso advisor	Upgrade on arrival subject to availability; a daily breakfast credit of $60 per person for up to two guests per bedroom, non-cumulative, in the restaurant or via in-room dining; a $100 hotel credit for the Palm Court, the Champagne Bar, in-room dining, and spa services; early check-in and late check-out subject to availability; complimentary Wi-Fi
Accor Preferred by HERA	Accor's own advisor program, formerly the Sofitel STEP program. The Plaza participates, with benefits including a $100 spa services credit and early check-in and late check-out. Fora Travel is a member of this program
Common terms	Neither advisor channel costs more. The rate matches the best available flexible rate booked direct. Benefit lists are renegotiated annually and several items are marked subject to availability, so confirm each one with your advisor before booking

The logic behind itThe Plaza appears on both the Virtuoso and the Accor Preferred lists, which is not common within the Accor portfolio. The reason is straightforward enough: this is a landmark property that depends on international advisor channels to fill rooms, rather than a business hotel that runs on a loyalty base. It also means the practical delivery of those benefits owes more to the relationship between your advisor and the hotel than to the program itself.

How to plan it

BeforeAsk which channel is stronger for your specific dates. The two lists change from year to year.
Two nightsWatch for the hotel's own third-night-free windows. Those promotions usually still stack with advisor benefits.
On propertyThe $50 food and beverage credit is issued daily and does not roll over. Applying it to breakfast is the simplest habit.
Heading outAsk the desk whether the Maybach is free. Inside ten blocks it beats waiting for a car.

09 · Accessibility and pets

Stone steps, roll-in showers, and New York's first hotel to take dogs

A landmarked 1907 building does not start from an easy position on accessibility. The Plaza publishes more detail than most hotels at this level, and several items still need a phone call to arrange. This page collects what is documented and is equally clear about what is not.

Entrance	There are stone steps at the main Fifth Avenue entrance. The hotel does not publish the location of a step-free alternative, so confirm the route with the front desk before you arrive
Accessible rooms	Several, with doors wide enough for wheelchair access and grab bars in the bathroom
Roll-in showers	Two of those rooms have a roll-in shower, and those two have no bathtub. If you need a roll-in shower and also want a tub, those two requirements are mutually exclusive here
On request	Wheelchairs, raised toilet seats, clamp-on tub bars, night lights, non-slip mats
How to request	Note it in the reservation, or call +1 212 759 3000 or email plazareservation@fairmont.com
Not published	The hotel does not publish information on assistive listening devices, braille signage, or the floors and exact count of accessible rooms. Those need to be asked case by case
Elevators	The elevator bank faces the Fifth Avenue lobby entrance. For the spa and gym, take the elevators to the left of reception up to the fourth floor

Traveling with a dog

The Plaza was the first hotel in New York to allow pets, and the tradition has held. The current policy accepts dogs of all sizes at no additional charge, up to two per room, with a damage release signed at check-in. Dogs cannot be left alone in the room. Service dogs are always welcome. The hotel provides a food bowl, a water bowl, and a dog bed, part of the Fairmont Canine Ambassador tradition.

There is one exception, on the eighteenth floor. The Eloise Suite does not take pets. By the rules of the book, the only dog with standing to sleep in that room is Eloise's pug, Weenie.

A small discoveryNext to the basement grill room in 1907 there was a dog check room, where long-term residents' dogs were boarded and fed rather luxuriously. Taking dogs is not a recent gesture toward a market segment. It was in the operating manual on day one.

Just say so in advance

BookingPut the requirement in the reservation notes rather than raising it at the desk. Accessible rooms are limited in number.
Before arrivalWith heavy luggage or a stroller, call ahead about assistance at the Fifth Avenue steps.
With a dogGive the number and size in advance, and remember the dog cannot stay in the room alone, so plan outings together.

10 · The review record

Where it lands, and where it loses points

Tripadvisor puts The Plaza at 4.5 out of 5 across more than 5,600 reviews, ranked fourteenth of 524 hotels in New York City. The subscores are consistent: Location 4.9, Rooms 4.6, Cleanliness 4.7, Sleep Quality 4.6, Service 4.4. The one clear outlier is Value at 3.9.

Praise that repeats

The location. Subway entrance in the base of the building, Central Park six minutes away, MoMA six minutes away
Room size and the marble bathrooms, which land in the upper band for the price in New York
The architecture of the public rooms. One guest put it plainly: anyone complaining about the views should remember that the walls of the Plaza are the view
Palm Court service. Individual servers are named again and again by unrelated reviewers
Being remembered. Multiple guests report staff from the door to housekeeping using their names
Birthdays and anniversaries. Champagne, flowers, and handwritten notes show up with unusual frequency
Upgrades do happen. One party reported a two-story Terrace Penthouse Suite
The house car and the concierge team, whose members hold Les Clefs d'Or keys

Criticism that repeats

The gap between price and experience. This is the densest theme and it is what the 3.9 measures
Room service trays left in corridors. One guest reported asking twice over nearly twenty-four hours. This appears in more than one review
Hallway carpet showing fraying and wear
Inconsistent service. Encountering both outstanding and noticeably cool staff on the same stay is a common description
Large numbers of non-guests entering the lobby to take photographs, with staff reading as guarded as a result
The Fifth Avenue steps, where help with a stroller is not always offered
At tea, non-residents report being told that hot beverages were reserved for hotel guests before being asked whether they were staying
Some guests found the spa dated. That space only changed hands to 111SKIN in autumn 2025, so this one is still moving

How to read thisTake that 3.9 apart and almost none of it is hardware. Rooms score 4.6 and cleanliness 4.7. What pulls the number down is service inconsistency, and the inconsistency has a structural source. This building receives a heavy daily flow of people who are not staying: tea visitors, film pilgrims, holiday decoration crowds. In peak season the hotel requires a reservation for non-residents to enter the lobby at all. A team that has to greet guests and manage sightseers at the same time will not hit the same temperature every time. Knowing that puts your expectations in the right place.

11 · Around the hotel

This corner is already half a day

The Plaza stands on one of the most walkable corners in Manhattan. Tripadvisor scores this address 100 out of 100 for walkability. Within about a third of a mile there are 151 attractions and 229 restaurants, and none of them requires transport.

One minute	The Pulitzer Fountain and Grand Army Plaza, where the carriage horses queue
Three minutes	Bergdorf Goodman, the Apple Fifth Avenue store, Tiffany, Chanel, Louis Vuitton
Six minutes	The Pond and Hallett Nature Sanctuary in Central Park, and the Museum of Modern Art
Ten minutes	Carnegie Hall, the Central Park Zoo, Columbus Circle
Fifteen minutes	Rockefeller Center, St Patrick's Cathedral, Radio City Music Hall
Subway	The Fifth Avenue–59th Street entrance (N, R, W) is in the base of the hotel. 57th Street is four minutes away
Across the street	The General Motors Building to the east, the Park Lane Hotel to the west, the Solow Building and the Paris Theater to the south

The alternatives on the same corner

This is one of the densest clusters of luxury hotels in New York, and several comparable properties sit within a short walk, each solving a different problem. For a true park view, look along Central Park South. For a quieter room, walk east into the fifties. For newer hardware, look west. What The Plaza sells is not newness. It is the building.

If you only want to see the inside without staying, the practical route is a booking for tea or breakfast. In peak season the hotel restricts lobby access for visitors without a reservation, though the 58th Street shops entrance stays open and needs no booking at all.

How to plan it

EarlyWalk into Central Park and loop The Pond, then pick up coffee on the way back. It is the single best use of this address.
AfternoonBergdorf Goodman is three minutes and MoMA is six. Neither needs a car.
Staying inPut the $50 credit toward lite fare at the Champagne Bar. It is simpler than booking a table elsewhere.

12 · The details

Five things most guests never learn

One. Those stone steps, and April 24, 1970

At noon on April 24, 1970, Chiang Ching-kuo, then Vice Premier of the Republic of China on Taiwan and the son and designated successor of Chiang Kai-shek, arrived at The Plaza to address a luncheon of the Far East American Council of Commerce and Industry. About thirty demonstrators from the World United Formosans for Independence stood across the street, and it was raining. In the seconds while Chiang stepped out of the car, climbed the Fifth Avenue steps, and approached the revolving door, Peter Huang (Huang Wen-hsiung), a sociology doctoral student at Cornell, broke from the crowd and fired. A police officer knocked his arm upward, the bullet struck the glass above the revolving door, Chiang was unharmed, and he walked quickly inside. Pinned to the ground, Huang shouted the line that is still quoted in Taiwan today: Let me stand up like a Taiwanese. His brother-in-law Cheng Tzu-tsai rushed forward and was also arrested.

Taiwan remembers this as the 424 Incident. Both men later jumped bail. Cheng was extradited from Sweden in 1972 and served time; Huang lived in exile until returning to Taiwan in 1996. How the episode should be judged is still argued in Taiwan, and this article takes no position on that. The point here is a concrete one. The steps and the revolving door are still in place, and you will walk over them when you arrive. There are thousands of articles about this hotel. Almost none of them mention this.

Two. The green roof is a deliberate color match

The top three stories sit inside a green Ludowici tile mansard roof, and the domes on the two corner turrets are green as well. That green is not weathered copper. It was chosen to match the color of the trees in Central Park so the building would settle into the tree line when seen from the park side. The decision was made in 1905 and it still works today.

Three. Eloise lives in room 1832

Kay Thompson wrote Eloise in 1955 about a six-year-old who lives in a room on the tippy-top floor of The Plaza, reportedly modeled on Thompson's goddaughter Liza Minnelli. In the 1960s the hotel hung Eloise's portrait in the lobby, where it remains. There is now a real Eloise Suite: number 1832, eighteenth floor, designed by Betsey Johnson, about 625 sq ft (58 m²), pink and black, zebra-print carpet, her name in neon above the bed, and a closet full of tutus and crowns.

Two things to know before booking it. Weekend stays carry a two-night minimum, and the suite does not accept pets. As for the view, the Historic Hotels of America listing describes an interior courtyard view while some press coverage describes Central Park. The sources disagree, so confirm with the hotel directly if it matters to you.

Four. Three paintings of the year this building opened

Three Everett Shinn murals hang in the Oak Bar, commissioned during the 1945 renovation and showing this block as it looked in 1907. Standing in that room, you are looking at what was actually outside the windows when the building was new. When Westin bought the hotel in 1976, the murals were not part of the sale, and the company paid a million dollars separately to acquire them. The Oak Bar operates as a private event space now, so getting in depends on what is booked.

Five. The Plaza in the Plaza Accord is this hotel

On September 22, 1985, the finance ministers of the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at The Plaza and agreed to act together to bring down the value of the dollar against the major currencies. The agreement took its name from the place where it was signed. It is called the Plaza Accord, and a great many people who know the term have never connected that Plaza to this building. The yen rose sharply afterward, and economic historians often date the start of Japan's asset bubble years to that meeting. The room where you take afternoon tea sits next to the room where a generation was rewritten.

Take your time On opening day in 1907, the first name in the register was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, and Mark Twain was in the room. Roughly ninety percent of the units went to long-term residents, and a short-stay guest paid two dollars fifty a night. Those long-term residents, the wealthy widows of the following decades, later became the hotel's lifeline: through the Depression their rent was what kept the building solvent. A structure that stands for a hundred and twenty years is rarely carried by its glamorous years.

The Plaza New York Review: Rooms, Tea, and Real Costs

One building, three entrances, two identities

One corridor holds a hundred years together

The rooms are large, but the park view is not on your side

A tub and a separate shower, in every single room

The Palm Court: three seatings under a glass ceiling

The room deserves a look on its own terms

The Champagne Bar: one room, 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.

It was once the ten most expensive tables in the building

Fourth-floor spa, second-floor salon, basement shops

What is left downstairs

The line below the room rate, and three ways to book

What the $65 actually returns

The house car: one Maybach, ten blocks

Three ways to book

Stone steps, roll-in showers, and New York's first hotel to take dogs

Traveling with a dog

Where it lands, and where it loses points

Praise that repeats

Criticism that repeats

This corner is already half a day

The alternatives on the same corner

Five things most guests never learn

One. Those stone steps, and April 24, 1970

Two. The green roof is a deliberate color match

Three. Eloise lives in room 1832

Four. Three paintings of the year this building opened

Five. The Plaza in the Plaza Accord is this hotel

How to spend a night here, and who the castle is for

Good for

Less good for